Neil Critchley's immediate reaction to Blackpool's win over Fleetwood Town as he shares dressing room confidence

A first half header from Jake Beesley proved to be the difference against Fleetwood Town on Tuesday night to back up Saturday’s result against Cambridge Town. The Seasiders saw a penalty saved and had protests for a red card waved away in the second half, while the Cod Army were denied an equaliser late on by both the linesman’s flag and a superb Dan Grimshaw save.

Blackpool have closed the gap between themselves and the final play-off place to three points, but have played a game more than both Oxford United and Lincoln City, who remain ahead of them. Stevenage are also still in the hunt, and sit in ninth only on goal difference.

Reflecting on the Fleetwood victory, Critchley said: “It’s nice to win 1-0, but it’s not nice when you’re 1-0 up with five or 10 minutes to go and the opposition are piling forward. It’s a good way to win games, it's good to be able to see them out and defend the goal. It gives the players confidence that if we score, we can win the game- it’s what we’ve shown in the last two games.

"It was a really good game between two teams who wanted to win the game in different ways. Fleetwood had some good moments, but I thought we were in control. We scored a really good first goal and had moments to kill the game off. When you don’t do that they throw players up the pitch to get back into the game, and they nearly did that- Grimmy (Dan Grimshaw) pulled off some excellent saves.

"It was a really good goal and it’s something we’ve worked on a lot. CJ dropped his shoulder and crossed it in, Bees (Jake Beesley) nipped in front of his man, it was a good header to beat the keeper. We could’ve made it slightly easier for ourselves, we’ve had to fight it out and defend the goal, and we did that.

"We’ve been excellent at home this season, we’ve just not replicated it away at times. We’ve got three games to go and nine points to play for so if we can keep putting pressure on then who knows what can happen.”