Manager Neil McDonald has reflected on the ‘mire’ Blackpool find themselves in following another loss last night.
Travelling to Boundary Park to face off against our relegation rivals Oldham Athletic, the hosts took the game one nil on the night to consign the club to another defeat this season and things only look worse now when you peak at the League One table.
Back to back relegations have worried most all season, now it’s looking a real possibility and unavoidable.
Speaking to the Official Site in his post game press conference, McDonald rued the lack of a cutting edge in the final third, stating we had to find some form and then consistency in front of the net to turn the season around.
We have only scored once in the last five matches.
‘You have to take the pressure off yourself by putting the ball in the back of the net and we haven’t done that for a while, and that’s the most concerning thing. We’ve tried different formations, we’ve tried everybody up top and none of the forward thinking players can get a goal for us at the moment. We need to score goals to turn things around and keep that confidence. We played well in the first-half tonight but we didn’t score that goal to put them on the back foot.’
With the first half being the brighter for Blackpool, McDonald was also frustrated that we couldn’t build on that showing – show further improvement – and really get at them in the second half as it was very much a match of two halves again.
‘It was a very good first-half but again we didn’t put the ball in the back of the net. They’ve punished us heavily with one or two chances that they’ve had. It was a poor performance second-half, in my opinion. I thought we dominated the first-half, but we didn’t score and that puts pressure on the defensive side of play. Unfortunately we didn’t stay with our man or close the ball down and they put it in the back of the net, which we should have done on numerous occasions tonight. The pressure is getting to us a little bit, we have to hold our nerve. If we play like we did in the first-half for the rest of the season then I’m sure we’ll be fine.’
Travelling fans will have their own thoughts on that, as they will the hopes for a much needed win against Crewe Alexandra at the weekend.
