Manager Neil McDonald reacted to the heavy loss to Peterborough United at the weekend by admitting the club have let the fans down.
Many would say the club have in fact lived up to expectations this season as they now prepare for life in League Two having suffered successive relegations.
Losing five one last weekend though meant McDonald couldn’t even try to pull punches in his post game press conference.
Speaking to the Official Site at the full time whistle, he explained that the side simply had been good enough, often enough to avoid this fate.
‘It was never just going to be about today. We’ve let ourselves down throughout the season by not scoring enough goals and when we’ve taken the lead we haven’t shown enough backbone to finish games off. That’s certainly cost us. I’m very sorry that we haven’t been able to amass enough points to stay in the league. We’re a brand new team but that’s not an excuse. From the start that we had, we’ve been playing catch-up all the way through and certainly the lack of goals hasn’t helped in that situation.’
He went on to say.
‘Knowing what the score was at half-time from Fleetwood left us resigned to the fact that we were probably relegated and we stopped doing what we did first-half. The players have embarrassed themselves in there with their second-half performance and they’ve certainly embarrassed me. I’m embarrassed for the fans who came down and watched that second-half performance.’
As for his own future, and that of the club, he ended by saying that plenty at Blackpool had a ‘whole lot of soul searching to do’ before next season.
‘It’s always difficult at the end of a season, especially after getting relegated, to make decisions on people’s careers. It’s not a very nice thing to do.’
Goalkeeper Colin Doyle also faced the cameras to apologise to the fans on behalf of the team.
‘I`d like to apologise on behalf of the lads. It just wasn`t good enough. It`s not just about today, we should have put more points on the board. Knowing Fleetwood were 2-0 up put a big pin in the afternoon, but the second-half wasn`t good enough, we shouldn`t be keeling over like that. We were by far the better side in the first-half but conceded a penalty and, like we have done over the last few games, let the game get away from us.’
Speaking more about the season overall, he ended by saying.
‘We haven`t won enough games, it`s as simple as that. We`ve been through patches where we put runs together and then ended up losing six or seven games. We weren`t consistent across the whole season and that probably cost us. If we`d have beaten Fleetwood we would have been in the driving seat but we couldn`t get that goal. We`re gutted. Nobody wants to get relegated but we`ve got to stick together somehow and come back next season to give it a go.’
