Harry Pritchard hails Blackpool on January bounce-back

It leaves Terry McPhillips’ side in eighth position, six points off the play-offs with a game in hand on sixth-placed Peterborough.

Pritchard said: “That’s four on the bounce we haven’t lost, so we’ve bounced back well from a rocky period over Christmas. We’ve done well since then and we’re moving up the table nicely.

“It’s a big one at Accrington Stanley this weekend and we definitely know it’s going to be tough.

“It’s a tough opponent and a tough pitch – just like ours – but I’m sure we’ll battle well.”

Pritchard was Blackpool’s penalty hero on Tuesday night, netting from the spot five minutes from time to salvage a 2-2 home draw with Wycombe Wanderers.

He said :“I got six penalties last year for Maidenhead, so I was always confident stepping up to the spot that I’d be able to put it in the back of the net.

“I think a few people fancied it themselves. Nya (Kirby) did well winning the penalty and then he wanted it, and Armand (Gnanuillet) is always taking penalties in training. But we said when Jay (Spearing) came off that I would be taking penalties.

“I could hear Terry and the management team on the sidelines telling them to give me the ball, so Tilty (Curtis Tilt) made sure that happened.”

Pritchard started the game on the bench but came on after Spearing picked up a knee injury just six minutes in.

The midfielder added: “Luckily it was so early in the game that I was still relatively warm from the warm-up, so that wasn’t too bad.

“I thought I settled well into the game and I thought we played well. We’re just disappointed with the goals we conceded.

“I thought we coped with their style well and we restricted them to set-pieces, but unfortunately that’s how they scored their goals. We know we need to defend better from them, which is something we can learn from.

“I felt we definitely deserved something out of the game.

“Three points probably should have been ours but we’ll take the point, having come back from behind twice.”