Salford boss Karl Robinson feels his players are reaping the rewards for their hard work after they moved into the automatic promotion places with a 2-0 victory over Tranmere at Prenton Park.
Second-half goals from Jorge Grant and Kelly N’Mai secured a fourth win in five matches for the visitors, while Tranmere slumped to a fifth straight defeat.
Robinson said: “I’m really pleased with the level of the performance.
“In the first half we had control of the game but I didn’t feel like we were asking a lot of questions of the opposition.
“I made a couple of changes at half-time, which is something I don’t usually like doing, but we have standards we have to stick to and it could have been one of many who came off.
“We played so well against Chesterfield on Tuesday and to think the way that game ended, we needed a better response than what we gave in the first half and in the second half I think we looked more comfortable.
“This football club believes in working hard, being disciplined, overcoming difficult moments and being resilient.
“The Football League is like a rollercoaster and there are so many things that are going to be asked of you.
“So if you keep responding in a positive way and keep working hard, then you get the correct outcome, and the players deserve all the credit in the world.”
Tranmere manager Andy Crosby, whose side once again left the field to a chorus of boos, felt a couple of critical moments cost them.
He said: “I thought for long spells we were more than in the game. We had more shots than them and more corners than them.
“We’ve lost the game because we lost concentration at a key moment of the game from a set-play situation and find ourselves behind.
“Then the second goal we don’t go and engage and we let their player drive into the box and he scores with a shot across goal.
“Everyone is hurting, the supporters obviously, but the players and the staff, it’s not what we want to be doing.
“We’ve got to stay strong mentally, we have to stick together as a group, and we have to know what the basics of the game require at our level.
“But there’s no point feeling sorry for ourselves whatsoever, we have to keep going, we have to find the solutions, we have to keep working, and that’s what we’ll try and do.”
