AFC Fylde friendly leaves Blackpool with a lot of work to do

Pool managed to keep their unbeaten pre-season record intact courtesy of Nathan Delfouneso’s last-minute equaliser at Mill Farm last night.

It was a result the Seasiders barely deserved, leading McPhillips – who spoke post-match in the absence of Gary Bowyer, who missed the game for family reasons – to call for improvements from his side.

“There’s loads of work to be done,” McPhillips said.

“We weren’t very good first half. They were sharper and quicker and on the front foot.

“They were better than us to be fair. We then concede a poor goal from our point of view.

“Second half we changed our tactics a little bit which we were always going to do and that opened the game up.

“There were chances at either end which I thought made for an exciting second half. I thought we were much better.

“They were right up for it with their big strong boys at the back, so it was never going to be easy.

“It’s a local derby and we’re on their patch.

“There was a good crowd in and a bit of an atmosphere, that got louder and louder as the night went on.

“But fair play, I think you have to give Fylde great credit for the way they went about it.

“They’ve got some nice footballers and they played some good stuff and caused us some problems.

“Their main forward (Danny Rowe) scored a good goal from their point of view, but from our point of view we’ve got to do better.”

Fylde looked to be heading for the win thanks to Danny Rowe’s early effort, although they spurned chances to build on their lead.

With the Coasters making a number of changes in the second half, Pool fought back towards the end leading to Delfouneso’s last-minute leveller - his second goal in as many games.

“I thought the enthusiasm and togetherness of the lads to go and get the equaliser, which they did, that really shone out in the end,” McPhillips added.

“But we weren’t at the races at the start, so there’s plenty to work on both attacking and defending.

“We need to be better at making the ball stick in attack.

“That doesn’t half help retaining possession and building up your moves. We didn’t do that first half and we paid the price.

“The game definitely opened up as it went on, it was wide open. It did make for an end-to-end game.

“We definitely did better in the second half.

“The way we played did give them some chances but in the end I thought 1-1 was a fair result.”