In this season’s League One, Blackpool manager Neil Critchley believes his team has a strong chance of becoming “a force to be reckoned with,” according to Simon Smedley.
The Seasiders defeated high-flying Stevenage at Bloomfield Road with a convincing and incredibly remarkable score of 3-0, showcasing their undeniable talents.
The greatest haul brought Critchley’s team within one point of the top six.
At the conclusion of the game, I told the players that I thought we were building momentum, said Critchley.
“I believe that is now just one loss in six. At Charlton last week, we absolutely ought to have prevailed. Despite being up 2-0, we absolutely threw that away.
“This week, we discussed it as a group and demonstrated to the guys some things about what we can improve on. It was crucial that we finish the game far better than we did against Stevenage when we were ahead 2-0 and then 3-0, and we achieved that to perfection.
“We’ve defeated a solid club here, and that gives us some nice momentum moving ahead, especially with a challenging matchup against Oxford now on the horizon. We’ve demonstrated that we can contend.
“We know we can beat anyone in this league because we went to Barnsley and won, and we had a chance to win against Charlton. We need to start exuding a little more self-assurance and belief. This season, I think we can be a force to be reckoned with.
Jordan Rhodes’ predatory finish gave the Seasiders the lead at the half as he deflected skipper Ollie Norburn’s initial shot past a helpless Taye Ashby-Hammond. Then, the home team put on a tremendously brilliant and commanding second-half performance, with Owen Dale using a deflection to double the lead around the hour mark.
After executing a flawless one-two with Rhodes, CJ Hamilton coolly sunk the third goal for the hosts late in the game.
“We knew we’d have to fight very hard to get anything today,” Critchley continued. A Steve Evans team is never easy to play against. They are tough, they follow a process religiously, and they excel at it.
But it’s a great good win for us, and keeping the scoreless is incredibly satisfying. “We’ve had a little bit of luck here and there, especially just before halftime with their offside shout, but we’ve also had decisions go against us this season, and they do tend to balance themselves out,” said the player.
This merely keeps us progressing in the right direction at this time. We scored several fantastic team goals in the second half, and I thought we were really at ease.
“Today, we saw that we need all of our players to contribute. The final objective was all about the kind of team we aspire to be.
“Sometimes you have to be patient, and expectations are different this season,” said the player, “but I’m delighted because I think this was a relatively comfortable win for us against a quality team.”
