'We were second best': Simon Grayson on Blackpool's hard-earned win against Oxford

Simon Grayson admits his Blackpool side were "second best in all departments" against Oxford United despite the Seasiders maintaining their perfect start with a 2-1 victory.
Grayson admits his side were second bestGrayson admits his side were second best
Grayson admits his side were second best
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The Gaazette's report from Blackpool's hard-earned win against Oxford United

First-half goals from Ryan Edwards and Armand Gnanduillet helped Pool on their way to a third straight victory in League One.

However Oxford, who pulled a goal back through Josh Ruffels, were the dominant side throughout and were unfortunate to come away empty-handed.

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“We’ve won a game, which I’m delighted about," Grayson said.

“I think when I analyse the game I think it’s fair to say we were second best in all departments. Hopefully that’s an honest assessment of it all.

“We were three or four yards off the pace, but they’re a good team.

“They passed it around and tired us and if they do that they can hurt teams, but we didn’t seem to have any spark about us and the retention of the ball was poor.

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“But what we did do was grind the result out and get three points. The stats will say they had a load of more shots and a load of more possession, but the only stat that interests me is the one that says we won the game and got three points.

“I’m sure Karl will be disappointed not to get something out of the game because I think they deserved to get something.

“We had a perfect start going 2-0 up but conceded right on the stroke of half time which rocked us a little bit.

“But before that we did look like we could concede because we weren’t stopping crosses, we weren’t stopping runs and we weren’t getting tight to people all over the pitch.

“It just looked like we were a little bit leggy from the game on Tuesday night.

“But some of those players have got big hearts and they dug deep to grind the win out.”