'We got our rewards': Michael Appleton delighted as Blackpool finally get what they deserve

The Seasiders won for the first time in five games on Saturday as they swept Watford away late on thanks to Jerry Yates’ quickfire double.

Gary Madine had previously opened the scoring with a cute lob, only for Watford to level courtesy of Imran Louza’s pinpoint free-kick.

Having been second best for much of the first-half, the Seasiders were dominant in the second and finally showed the quality in the final third to claim a much-needed return to winning ways.

“No matter who you play against, they’re going to have a spell in the game,” Appleton said.

“Once they got the goal their tails were up and they started popping the ball about, albeit a lot of it was in front of us and we were mindful of that before the game.

“But in the first 20 minutes of the second-half, we were great. We were aggressive, we were on the front foot and we were certainly a lot braver in and out of possession and we created numerous chances.

“You’ve got to earn the right to be in the game at half-time and give yourself the opportunity to not let games get away from you.

“We started really strongly in that first-half. I was really pleased because against Sunderland we allowed them to build momentum and we didn’t really get after them.

“But we didn’t allow Watford to do that in the early parts today. There was a bit of disruption which hurt us more than it hurt them but the lads dug in.

“They knew with the backing we’re getting at home at this moment in time that we’d get another opportunity.

“The biggest thing was calming them down at half-time, telling them to relax and say ‘look, this is what we need to do’, because we needed to be braver and not worry about space in behind because that was the impression I got in the first-half because they’ve got a lot of pace in their side.

“Once we got that out of our system and were a bit more aggressive applying pressure to the ball, we got our rewards for it.”