More from Blackpool manager Neil McDonald ahead of the Easter clashes against Bury and Doncaster Rovers, and Clark Robertson has also been speaking about how the club need to build some momentum following on from the victory over Crewe Alexandra.
Beginning with the manager with more quotes carried by the Official Site from his pre game press conference, McDonald explained that it was vital Blackpool got themselves on a run of results now with three points behind us.
‘We’ve got a great chance to go and put that bit of breathing space by winning another game at home against Bury. We’re feeling good about ourselves after a fantastic and well deserved win against Crewe and we have to capitalise on that as much as we possibly can.’
With Blackpool scoring three times in the last encounter with David Flitcroft’s side and still coming away with nothing to show for it, the manager does not want a repeat of that.
‘We need to do a lot better than we did at Gigg Lane and continue to put the ball in the back of the net, like we did last week. We created lots of chances against Crewe and we must continue that as well.’
In terms of team news, Jack Redshaw is suspended, but David Ferguson and Lloyd Jones come back into contention.
‘David is close to coming back, he’s trained over the last few days. Lloyd had a little bit of a twisted ankle last week but he’s been training OK so we’ve got a healthy squad to choose from.’
Boosting competition is the arrival of Leicester City loanee Jacob Blyth.
‘He’s a big target man with good inter-link play and he couldn’t wait to come here. I’ve watched him on a few occasions for Leicester’s under-21s and he’s always done well and impressed me. Hopefully he can impress us in the short time that he’s here.’
The gaffer also had praise for Luke Higham.
‘Luke has been brilliant, to be fair. I’ve been waiting to put him in the team when there’s been no pressure but we’ve had a couple of injuries and thrown him in early. He’s certainly coped and played well in the last few games.’
McDonald went on to say that his performances in the last three games have justified why he didn’t want him going out on loan – he just had to be patient for his chance.
‘I didn’t want him to go out, I’ve been impressed with what I’ve seen so far in training and in the games we’ve played in the Lancashire Senior Cup. As I say, I wanted to put him in the team when the pressure was off so I could see the best of him, but we’re certainly seeing the best of him when the pressure’s on. He’s a local lad coming through and that’s excellent. Fans want to see local players in the team and he’s certainly one of them, fighting for the shirt like everybody else.’
As for Robertson, getting on a run and building some real momentum were his watchwords.
‘It was a massive boost for us but there`s no point winning last weekend and not taking it into the two games coming up. We can`t take anything for granted. We`ve still got to work hard because we know we`re in a difficult situation. We need to keeping picking up points, starting on Friday. It was massive to see we were out of the bottom four. You`d rather have points on the table at this stage of the season than games to catch up on.’
With Robertson’s first goal in the league coming in the reverse clash against Bury back in October, and the game ending in a four three defeat, 22 year old Robertson went on to say.
‘All our focus is on Friday against Bury. We know they`re a good team, they beat us 4-3 but we probably should have got something from the game last time. They scored from three set pieces and a wonder goal but even in that game we had enough chances to go on and win the game. We know what they`re all about, especially from set pieces. If we can get three points on Friday it will stand us in good stead for games coming up.’
