'Still fighting': Stephen Dobbie verdict on Blackpool's hard-earned win against Birmingham City

The Seasiders lived to fight another day with a smash and grab 1-0 win against Birmingham City thanks to Ian Poveda’s late strike.

It was far from pretty as the Seasiders, but they got the points they required to win away for the first time since October when they overcame Coventry City 2-1.

It means Blackpool remain second from bottom in the Championship with only two games remaining, but more importantly the gap to safety is now just three points.

“The boys are still fighting,” Dobbie said.

“I don’t think we’ve won away from home since late October, so that’s the pleasing part and you saw what it means to the fans.

“In the first-half we worked on how they play long into (Lukas) Jutkiewicz and (Jobe) Bellingham running off him and the threat of (Tahith) Chong coming inside. We worked a lot on that and I thought we nullified that.

“Curtis Nelson and Jordan Thorniley were towers at the back once again.

“As I said to the players at half-time, we’ve got nothing to lose here so can we go for it? Can we get the win? Can we get it over the line to keep fighting for Friday night before the other teams play?

“Obviously QPR won but we’re still there, we’ve got something to play for. If you had said that six games ago I would have taken that.”

The most pleasing aspect of the performance was how well the Seasiders managed the game after taking the lead 16 minutes from time.

“We’ve got good players in the team,” Dobbie added.

“You bring boys like Callum Connolly on who has experience and those boys are vital to getting you over the line.

“We were actually ready to make a double change and change the formation, because we obviously needed to go for it and win.

“Then we get the luck of the bounce and it goes in, so I had to calm down and reassess what you’re going to do. But regardless, Callum was coming on anyway.”