Manager Gary Bowyer has given his reaction to the fantastic victory over Leyton Orient at the weekend and last night’s defeat to Mansfield Town.
Beginning with the Orient encounter, Blackpool travelled to Brisbane Road for the game and took a two one victory with goals coming from Jamille Matt and Tom Aldred, and Bowyer was clearly delighted as he spoke to the Official Site in his post game media interviews.
Citing a fantastic away performance, he explained.
‘I thought it was a fantastic away performance, we scored some good goals again and their goalkeeper has made some fabulous saves. I thought our shape and organisation was ever so good. We got tested at the end but the desire and the determination from the players was magnificent.’
With it being three in three for Matt now, he obviously came in for praise.
‘It was a wonderful finish and a good bit of play. I didn’t think we passed it enough as what we have done recently but that was a nice, little passage with Tayls, Danny Pugh and Clark Robertson and it was a great ball from Clark, and a great individual goal from then in because he out-strengthened the defender and put it away ever so well.’
The game also saw Aldred’s first strike of the season.
‘We’re disappointed with the contribution from the defenders from set-plays, bar Kelvin Mellor. We’re delighted that he’s got on the score-sheet and he nearly had a second – I’d like to see that one again – but the main task of the defenders is to defend, and I was impressed with their defending today. Clark made a great block late on as well.’
Bowyer was also pleased to see us make it back to back wins, with our second away win of the campaign so far.
‘It’s not just the fact that it’s another away win, it’s the the fact that it’s back-to-back wins because we’ve not done that this season. We’re pleased with our work today but, like we said last Saturday, we’re not going to get carried away because we’ve got a tough game now on Tuesday at Mansfield.’
Having scored his first of the season, Aldred was also in front of the media at the full time whistle.
‘I feel I should pose more of a threat aerially in the opposing box, I just needed to get off the mark so hopefully now they keep coming like buses. I had a good record last season and want to improve on that. I`m delighted with the goal, it`s been coming, but delighted more with the win.’
Moving onto Tuesday’s encounter, Blackpool went down one nil at the day at Field Mill, with the hosts scoring three minutes into full time stoppage time.
Clearly Bowyer was disappointed not to take the point to build on the earlier victory, but he knew we’d been punished for one mistake.
‘It’s a cruel game sometimes. Unfortunately we’ve got to take it on the chin and get ready for Saturday. I didn’t think there was much quality in the game from either side, I thought there was a lot of fight and effort and their goalkeeper has made a wonderful save from Clark. Unfortunately we’ve made a mistake at the end and it’s costs us.’
As for the goal, he continued to say.
‘We had two opportunities to clear it and we failed to do it. As a result it’s ended in the back of our net. We’ve now got to re-group and go again. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves.’
With the unbeaten run now over, he admitted it was about picking up a result in the next game now, but second half he did feel there were positives that could be taken – but it was the final touch of composure that had let us down.
‘We spoke at half-time, we thought that we countered very well but we just didn’t quite have that final pass and the composure to pick somebody out. We’ve just got to make sure that we do that better on Saturday. We’ve just spoke about that at the end of the game, we’ve shown that we can play and put runs together and win games. We’ve got to do that again now.’
With Kyle Vassell missing the game, he explained he had a late fitness test on Tuesday morning following a knock at the weekend, and the game was just too soon – but he was hopeful he’d return in time for the game next weekend.
