Macclesfield Town need to put things right against Blackpool, says manager Mark Yates

The Seasiders travel to Moss Rose on Tuesday night to play their opening Group B fixture against the League Two side.

Macclesfield, who won the National League last season, have struggled so far and are without a league win.

They suffered a 3-0 defeat at local rivals Crewe Alexandra on Saturday - a result Yates says puts more pressure on them for their clash against Blackpool.

He said: “It’s not about talking. We’ve drawn a line under it now and we’ve had a good chat. Things were said.

“Everybody knows that it wasn’t good enough, particularly first half, for a local derby.

“So we’ve put ourselves under a little bit of pressure and we’ve got to get ready for Tuesday’s game and make sure we put in a performance that we want to be about.

“It’s our next game, so it matters.

“It would have been nice to come to Crewe, get a result like we had planned and like we were hoping for, then we had a plan for Tuesday.

“But I think we seriously need to just worry about our next game at the moment and worry about putting certain things into practice and putting things right.”