YOUTH: Blackpool match reaction

He said: “This was a very poor day for us. Alarm bells started ringing as early as the warm-up because the lads looked slow and lethargic. It seemed to be a massive effort for them just to get themselves going.

“I warned them that they had to buck up or they were going to suffer but it just didn’t happen for us. We didn’t get going at all and it was probably our worst performance of the season.

 

“We can’t blame the conditions because they were perfect. We lost Tom [Berwick] through injury and that makes a big difference to us. It’s the first time we’ve played without him and it showed that he is the main man who gets things going for us. 

“Blackpool steamrollered us in the first half. We were two down by half time and it was all over when they got their third on 69 minutes. Having said that we got two goals in the last ten minutes but all that did was make the score line look more respectable than it deserved to be. 

“We could have been six or seven down by half time. It really was as poor as that. We didn’t look like a team at all and that was disappointing. It was a really rude awakening for us and Blackpool wanted it more than we did. That’s not something I’m prepared to accept too often.

“Hopefully it was a one-off and we’ll get back to something a bit more like normal against Bury. It’s hard to put your finger on why performances like this happen. Maybe it was because they had such a big result against Penrith Rangers that they thought it was going to be a walk in the park. 

“I have to say that I looked at our away record for this season and it has been poor. We’ve only won once on the road and we should be better than that with the side we have. It’s definitely something we need to improve on. 

“We haven’t had to talk about performances like this too much over the last two seasons. I grade the players from A to C for every game they play and I’m struggling to even find a B from this one. That’s disappointing for me and for them. Like I say, the 3-2 score line doesn’t really reflect how it went. We well and truly had our backsides kicked.

“It’s a learning process and we address it by making sure we do the work on the training pitch. We have to start against Bury in the right frame of mind because anything this poor won’t be acceptable at all. Blackpool enjoyed beating us and their staff were delighted with how it went. We’d beaten them up here and you could tell that they didn’t want that to happen again. 

“A clean sheet remains a target for us. We’re conceding far too many goals and we have to demand and expect better. We have a back five which is made up of second year players and they should want better for themselves. We’re working hard at it because we do know it’s a problem. We’re scoring two or three every week but we’re also conceding. That means we’re always in danger of losing games. It goes without saying we want to bring a stop to that.”

United – Parker, Gwinnutt, Staunch, Morse, Minor, Dempsey, Lynch, Thomson (Peel 79), Hodgson (Dixon 65), Salmon, Brough. Subs – Brass, Chisholm, McEvoy.

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Please note, these games tend to kick off 15 minutes early so please arrive early.