Blackpool must atone for 'lack of urgency' during frustrating midweek defeat when they take on Bristol Rovers

The Seasiders slumped to a disappointing 1-0 defeat at the New Meadow on Tuesday night in their final fixture of 2020.

Pool, who were well under-par, were undone by Dan Udoh’s first-half strike after loan goalkeeper Sam Walker had made a double save from Ollie Norburn’s penalty.

“It was a bad night at the office,” Critchley reflected.

“I didn’t think we were at our best at all. We improved in the second-half but it wouldn’t have been too difficult to improve on our first-half showing.

“I never thought before the game that it was going to be an open, attractive game where it was going to end up 3-2 or 4-3, I never thought that because you only have to look at their recent results and the way they play to know it was going to be a tight game of football with not a lot of chances at either end.

“I just thought a couple of things let us down: one, our quality and decision-making and two, in the first-half particularly, our general urgency for the game.

“There’s a few different reasons why that might have been the case but we spoke about it at half-time, we spoke about it after the game and now we have a couple of days to put it right against Bristol Rovers on Saturday.”

One of the only positives from Tuesday night was the performance of Walker, who was making his debut having joined on a seven-day loan from Reading.

With Chris Maxwell still recovering from Covid-19, that loan deal has now been extended by a further week to allow Walker to play against Bristol Rovers on Saturday.

“We were unsure whether Maxi would be 100 per cent available to return and he’s been quite ill with the coronavirus for a few days, it really affected him, so you’re never quite certain how the players are going to feel when they return to training,” Critchley said.

“We just had to make sure we did the right thing, both for Maxi because of his health, and for the team and for Sam as well.

“I was really delighted for Sam the other night, I thought he was excellent. Being thrown into a game like that was difficult but we’re delighted he’s going to stay and play again for us on Saturday.”

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