Blackpool assistant makes a case for the defence

Terry McPhillips’ men earned their second win in just four days as Blackpool edged out the Iron 1-0 thanks to Armand Gnanduillet’s first half strike.

It meant the Seasiders, who clinched their eighth clean sheet of the season, have now conceded nine goals in 13 league games.

“It’s great to get back-to-back wins. Not only is it two excellent results and two excellent clean sheets, it’s two excellent performances. We can’t ask for too much more,” Brabin said.

“Armand is in really good form at the moment. He’s working hard and he deserves his goals.

“At the other end of the pitch we were as solid as ever. Mark Howard in goal and the back four were excellent.

“There was some great defending and it was another deserved clean sheet.

“The lads are throwing their bodies on the line to keep those clean sheets and it’s no surprise that we’ve got the best defensive record in the league.”

Scunthorpe came into the game on the back of three defeats from their previous four games, but Brabin knew that form was slightly misleading.

He added: “I think you could see they had a little bit of a sting in the tail. We expected a response from the previous results.

“They were one of the fancied sides at the start of the season and rightly so because they’ve got some good players.

“They’ve had a change of manager (Stuart McCall) and he’s got a reaction from them, but he’ll be a bit disappointed with their last few results. They’re probably better than their last few results suggest.

“We expected a response which we had to be up for and I think that was the best start to a game. For 20 to 25 minutes we were brilliant.

“We were popping the ball around the pitch, got a great goal and we really put them on the back foot.”

Despite only leading by the single goal, the Seasiders saw out the final stages relatively comfortable as Scunthorpe struggled to create any clear-cut chances, which Brabin put down to Blackpool’s game management.

He said: “It’s not nice when we feel dominated the game for large periods and it’s still only 1-0, it’s always a dangerous scoreline.

“So we were conscious of that and we wanted to try and get the second goal, which is why we put Cully (Mark Cullen) up top with Armand.

“But I thought the lads did well right to the end. We were really professional in how we managed the game.

“We didn’t try and time waste or anything, it was just clever game management.”

Blackpool are back in action today as they take on Blackburn Rovers in the second round of the Lancashire Senior Cup.

The match takes place at Blackburn’s academy at Brockhall Village, kick off 12pm.