Yeates desperate for games at Blackpool

The 31-year-old winger produced an impressive display in Saturday’s hard-earned 1-1 draw at Crewe – his first league start of the season.

Yeates was satisfied with his performance at Gresty Road and hopes to retain his place for tonight’s home clash with Portsmouth.

He said: “I’ve been desperate to get out there and play. It’s been a bit of a strange one – I’ve not been used to being used so little.

“I got 70 minutes and I felt fit enough. I put some good balls into the box and some good set-pieces.”

When asked if he expected to keep his place in the starting line-up to face Pompey, Yeates replied: “Please God.”

He added: “The gaffer is going to make decisions and different teams are going to get picked but I am hoping he sticks with me. If I get a good run I can produce.”

The Irishman has managed 15 league appearances since joining the club from Oldham in January. Before Saturday, the former Watford and Bradford winger had made six appearances in all competitions this season – but all from the bench.

He came into the side for the injured Brad Potts at Crewe, a game in which Blackpool were again punished for missing a number of first-half chances.

Yeates added: “They ended the game quite strongly and put a few balls into our box, so on the whole we’ve probably got to look at it as a good point. But in the first half we had a number of chances and were causing a few problems.”

Speaking of the wasted chances, the Dublin-born winger said the Pool squad are well aware it is something they need to improve on.

“It seems like everybody is repeating themselves at the minute but we know that,” he said. “When we went in at half time, we hadn’t been brilliant but we probably could have been 2-0 up, which would have given us a bit of a cushion.

“First 20-25 minutes of the second half there wasn’t much in it and it was quite tight, but in the last 15 minutes we had to defend quite a lot of balls into the box.

“We probably didn’t play quite as well as we would have wanted.”