Terry McPhillips tells Blackpool players to focus on beating Scunthorpe United on Good Friday

Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at home to Peterborough United spelled the end of the Seasiders’ already faint hopes of finishing in a League One play-off spot.

It saw Pool drop down to 10th, 11 points off Doncaster Rovers in sixth place.

With seemingly nothing left to play for between now and the end of the campaign, McPhillips says all his players can do is focus on winning the next match – which is at Scunthorpe United on Good Friday.

“Where do we go now? We’ll do our best to win the next four games,” the Pool boss said.

“It’s our duty to go and get as many points as we can.

“We’ve got a hard game against Scunthorpe on Friday, they lost at the weekend, and then a massive game against Fleetwood here on Monday.

“It’s Barnsley and Gillingham after that and we’ll do our best to win every game.”

Despite Pool suffering a disappointing defeat against the Posh at the weekend, it was still a hugely positive week with the club avoiding a points deduction despite going into receivership.

When it was put to him the significance of the EFL’s decision might have been playing on the minds of his players, McPhillips said: “I can’t blame anything on that, I thought the lads were focused.

“But when you’re on top you’ve got to score your goal but we didn’t do that, although I thought Armand (Gnanduillet) had scored for us.

“Everyone on our side of the ground did but it went past the post after Liam Feeney put in a hell of a ball.

“We celebrated for a second or two but it didn’t go in and those are the key moments.

“Getting the first goal was going to be important but we dust ourselves down and concentrate on the remaining four games.

“I wouldn’t put anything on pressure. These lads have dealt with lots of things this season so it’s nothing to do with that.”

McPhillips opted against using all three subs for Pool against Peterborough, a game the away side won courtesy of Marcus Maddison’s effort on the stroke of half-time.

Creative players Jordan Thompson and Harry Pritchard remained unused substitutes despite their side needing a goal to get back into the game.

“I just thought we looked likely,” McPhillips said, explaining his reasoning. “But obviously I thought about it.

“I thought the two subs that came on (Chris Long and Donervon Daniels) did well and I thought it looked like we might get a goal, so I chose not to.

“They can all feel hard done by to be fair, as well as those who didn’t even make it onto the bench.

“I know they’re all disappointed. But the lads will have to show us again in training what they can do and we might make a couple of changes for next Friday, we’ll see.”