Caretaker boss David Dunn holds his hands up and takes responsibility for Blackpool's lacklustre second half display in Bolton win

The Seasiders were utterly dominant in the opening period yet only held a one-goal lead at the break courtesy of Connor Ronan’s 30-yard wonder strike.

Rock bottom Bolton improved in the second half and thought they had snatched a point when Kean Bryan equalised in the 87th minute.

Fortunately for the Seasiders, there was still time remaining for Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to rifle home the winner two minutes later.

Reflecting on his side’s display, Dunn said: “I thought we started very well. Our performance with the ball was excellent, as was our performance without the ball.

“You could see the lads gave everything we asked of them, they carried it out really, really well.

“Bolton obviously had to change it after the first half just because I felt we were so dominant. I even said to the players at half time ‘if I was in there, I’d be changing it’.

“To be fair they did and they gave us a few more problems.

“We’re in this game and people can be very critical at times, but my biggest critic is myself and if there’s one thing I’d say, and you won’t hear it many times, but I probably would learn a lot from that second half going forward.

“I felt that I could have helped us a little bit more.

“When things are happening in the game and it’s very fast, you’ve got a million and one things on your mind.

“But I felt I’d do things a little bit differently going forward, because I felt we could have stopped it at source a little bit better which would have allowed us to get up the pitch a touch.

“Watching the game back, I felt that was my responsibility and I could have helped the players to get us back in the game a little bit.

“Having said that, we had some excellent chances and we should have been home and dry.

“I’ve seen the penalty claims back and I’d like to think we should have had at least one, if not two of the three.

“Then we had a couple of chances as well, with Connor going through one-on-one when he could have possibly had a touch and come back on his right and then Gary Madine has a great attempt as well.

“In the future, we should be putting teams away with the amount of chances we’ve created. Liam Feeney in particular put some excellent balls in and looked a real threat on the night.

“Even though they put us under a little bit more pressure in the second half, the lads showed a real determination to stick together and when they did finally break us down, we showed a real hunger to get back in the game.

“As you can see by the fans reaction, everyone enjoyed it.”

Dunn admits nights like these are all part of his learning and development, adding: “I don’t care if you’ve been in the game two minutes or 20 years, we should all learn every day.

“We learn every day, we learn every game and I think the minute you stop learning and the minute you stop wanting to learn, your days are numbered.

“I’ve got to be honest with myself and I said that to the players. If you can be honest and transparent with everyone then we’ll be better for it.

“We can all point the finger but at times you’ve got to look in the mirror and hold our hands up when we get it wrong. That’s what I’m like.”

When asked what in particular he would have changed during that second half, Dunn told The Gazette: “Because it was working so well for us, I felt we didn’t need to change our shape just because the other team changed theirs.

“As the five, 10, 15 minutes went on, it teased me a little bit as we had a couple of good chances so I stuck with it.

“Ideally, I should have got pressure on the ball a bit more but listen, it might not have worked and it might have been worse for us. That’s the beauty of football, you just never know.

“Tactics are one thing but if we had changed it earlier they might have scored earlier and put a bit more pressure on us.

“We contained them for the majority, but I was happy with that winner went in that’s for sure, because I think it would have taken a lot off our performance had we only drawn.”