Neil Critchley explains why Jerry Yates and Gary Madine might not always play together in attack despite impressive partnership at Burton

The Seasiders lined up against Burton Albion on Saturday in a 4-4-2 formation, with Jerry Yates joining Gary Madine in attack.

The tactical change paid dividends, as the Seasiders battled to a deserved 2-1 victory thanks to Yates’ brace.

The striker, scoring his first goals for the club, played noticeably closer to Madine and the two combined well throughout.

While the slight tweak might have worked on this occasion, Critchley warned that might not always be the case and he will continue to pick his team depending on the opponent.

On the partnership between Yates and Madine, Critchley said: “They caused problems for Burton’s centre-halves but that’s why we picked them together. We thought it was an area of the pitch where we thought we could get some success.

“The game prior to that against Wimbledon, they played three at the back and they defended in more numbers, so we thought there would be less space behind the defenders so we picked Oli Sarkic to play with Gary.

“The game before that, we played Ben Woodburn with Jerry Yates against MK Dons because we wanted some energy to counter-attack against them because we knew they’d have some of the ball and would leave some space for us to run into, which they did.

“We’ve got quite a lot of attacking options and we can decide on what we think is the right personnel for each game depending on the opponent. That’s the beauty of it.

“They worked well together on Saturday, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be working together in the next game or the game after. We choose what we think is the right team to go and win against the opponent.”

Yates performed superbly on Saturday after notching his first goal for the club, slipping the ball past the onrushing keeper after latching onto Sullay Kaikai’s clever through-ball.

The former Rotherham United man then converted a second-half penalty to hand Blackpool all three points.

“It was a big moment for him and I was made up for him,” Critchley added.

“He’s an infectious personality. He’s bright, he’s bubbly every day and he’s a goalscorer so he wants to score goals. He’s probably been feeling it a little bit recently, so it was brilliant to see him get off the mark.

“He’s shown the courage at 1-1 to take the ball, take the penalty and score. He’s hit the post in the first-half, he’s hit the woodwork in other games as well, so he’s been a little bit unfortunate not to have scored so far but hopefully this will give him a real shot of confidence for the next few games.”