Michael Appleton delighted with the spirit of his Lincoln City players after fighting back to draw with Blackpool

With 15 minutes to play at Sincil Bank, the Seasiders were coasting towards a richly deserved sixth straight away victory thanks to a two-goal lead given to them by Ellis Simms and Sullay Kaikai.

Critchley’s men, who had been completely dominant until this point, wasted a host of golden opportunities to stretch their lead.

They were eventually made to pay for that wastefulness in front of goal when the Imps, who sit one point behind them in the table, fired in two quickfire goals to leave the visitors shell-shocked.

Despite the late disappointment, Pool extend their unbeaten run to 14 games and remain in the play-off places with eight games to go.

Imps boss and former Blackpool manager Appleton said: "My players have shown really good spirit.

"It's been a really tough couple of months and certainly a tough couple of weeks (with a Covid outbreak).

"I was worried about how we'd be condition-wise and I said before the game I'd probably have to use all of my subs, which we did.

"But having said that, there's no excuses. Blackpool's first goal, we have to be better, although I thought we got let down by the referee. But even when you get let down, you have to react and you still have to think danger and smell danger and we didn't do that.

"To go behind to a second goal which came out of nothing, although I have to say it's a good goal and they executed it well, for us to come back from that is really pleasing.

"We've gone behind in a lot of games of late and if you keep doing that, eventually it'll catch up with you.

"This feels like a bit of a win to the players but for me, I'm still frustrated because I know what they're capable of and I know a lot of teams fear the players we have in our dressing room.

"A lot of teams think they can bully those players as well, so it was important to get certain players on the pitch.

"It's a good point, don't get me wrong. It's a very good point because we haven't trained for two weeks and we're up against a side that are clearly in a rich vein of form at this moment in time.

"But we set our standards quite high at times and we have to get back to that."

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