Liverpool's Anderson's Love Match

Paul Anderson will have special reason to want to play well at Tranmere this afternoon - he will be watched for the first time by his girlfriend.

Although Anderson does not have a guaranteed starting place back on his native Merseyside he will be confident that his recent form will be enough to keep Andy Robinson and Leon Britton out of the side and with his love interest watching the game he will want to impress on the pitch.

Swansea's joint leading scorer - he has 8 goals alongside Jason Scotland - returns to his homeland for the first time for a game since he was loaned out for the season by Rafa Benetiz back in the summer.

"I'm looking forward to it as my girlfriend and her family are going to watch me for the first time," revealed Anderson in today's Western Mail, who also hopes to count on the support of a few old Liverpool friends at Prenton Park.

"They're not a massive football family... but hopefully I'll play well and won't look stupid.

"I play better when the pressure's on and you could say there'll be a bit of that with Eleanor sitting in the stand.

"We pretty much met at the end of last season and I only had a couple of games left for Liverpool reserves before I came down to Swansea.

"It is hard not seeing each other but when I get a day off I go back to Liverpool, and whenever she's got time off college she comes down to see me. We're both trying to make it work.

"It's surprised me how many goals I've scored," said Anderson. "I'm on eight now and that probably would have been my target for the season at the start.

"I'd like to get to double figures sooner rather than later because that's a milestone.

" I've scored a few and been getting the man-of-the-match awards in the last couple of games, and it's always nice to be recognised in that way. But, though I feel I'm doing all right, I still think there's more to come. The more games I play, the better I will get.

"We had a bad loss against Huddersfield last week, but you get these games and the aim now is to pick ourselves up at Tranmere," he said.

"The team hasn't played as well as we can do in the last few games and perhaps we are feeling that. We're trying to impress too much and too hard to win when we know we've got the ability. We should go out to relax and enjoy it, but everyone has that sort of patch in a season.

"At times we've played some great football, but we've not exactly had the rub of the green which, in football, you do need," he said.

"But we're still playing good football and we've been unlucky to drop points. We're still in the play-off positions and we'll get back on track.

"We know Tranmere is not an easy place to go, but we're looking to bounce back after the Huddersfield defeat."

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