Blackpool’s 2-1 triumph over Bristol Rovers at the Memorial Stadium, when they earned a rare three points away from home, is, in Neil Critchley’s opinion, their best victory of the season.
After strong goals from CJ Hamilton and Karamoko Dembele gave the Seasiders a two-goal advantage inside the first 20 minutes, Chris Martin gave the home team a response.
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It took a lot of effort in the second half to get Blackpool over the finish line and to mark this season’s only victory away from Bloomfield Road for Critchley’s team.
The Seasiders’ thrilling 4-0 triumph over Portsmouth in November was one of their other road victories. That caused some people to look up and give you some admiring stares from a distance. But as supporters headed back to the northwest, Critchley gave them the reassurance that their team’s finest effort of the year produced today’s victory.
“This is a really good victory for us because Bristol Rovers have really good players and they’ve beat some good teams at home,” Critchley said.
“Sometimes people don’t understand how difficult it is to actually win a game of football, it’s so hard and so many things can happen. You need luck and moments to go in your favour. Every game is competitive, we had to fight for everything we got today.
‘We’ve had to win in a different way. Certain aspects of our game have been questioned away from home and I think that answers some of them today. It wasn’t a pretty game of football but I thought we battled and competed because we had to. We made a good start before conceding a poor goal – it was criminal and gave them a lift, but in the second half they had momentum but didn’t really have an opportunity to score.
‘After the schedule we’ve been on and the 120 minutes we played against Forest, I’d say this is arguably our best win of the season.’
Bristol Rovers had calls for a penalty waved away by the referee in the latter stages of the game, as they looked for an equaliser.
‘It was outside of the box, but he fell into it,’ added Critchley.
‘It could’ve been given but we could’ve had one against Nottingham Forest the other night- these things happen. How long have you got? I’ve got a list of penalties we should’ve had this season. It was outside of the box, so it’s not a penalty any way, it’s a free kick.’
