Joey Barton expects an improvement from Fleetwood Town after Blackpool defeat

Gary Madine’s early winner deservedly secured the spoils for the Seasiders and inflicted a second straight defeat on Town after their midweek loss at Northampton Town.

Barton said: “I’m gutted for the fans because it would have been nice to win that local derby and get ourselves back into that play-off picture, but it is what it is and we’ve got another tie against them on Tuesday night.

“We’ve got to be crystal clear about winning that one.

“We’ll need to play the way we did in the second half and not the way we played in the first.

“If we do that, we can be a match for anybody.

“We’re gutted of course but there’s no point dwelling on this result for too long.

“We’ve got to dust ourselves down, get back on the training ground and start to turn these last two results around.

“Errors do happen in football but it’s how we respond to them that really counts.

“I spoke to the players at half-time and asked them to respond, and I felt they did that without any real quality.

“There were moments in that second half where, if we’d had that bit more composure, then we might have delivered.

“Unfortunately we just didn’t manage to do that.

“We weren’t good enough on the day, so credit to Blackpool.

“They defended resolutely, wasted time pretty much from the time they scored, and the officials let them off with a stonewall penalty.

“We just weren’t good enough in the end, though. We will be better on Tuesday night.”

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