Unchartered territory. That’s where we all were at 4.55pm after this one. A home win? On a Saturday? More than one goal at home in the league for the first time in 2005? Biggest win in any match since December 2002? And all this from a performance that was not as good as we have seen in recent games. I’ve been saying since the Chesterfield match that someone was due a shoeing from us and Blackpool took one without us getting anywhere near the passing and movement that we produced against Bradford.
The first 20 minutes we blitzed them but once again without being able to score. Same old story we thought as we seemed to drift off the pace a little before a blast before half time saw us take the lead and miss a penalty! 2-0 at the break would have been game over as Blackpool were pants but at 1-0 the game is never over! That penalty didn’t cost us much at all as ten minutes in to the second half we got another chance from 12 yards. Burton stuck this one away and a minute later thumped a header home to cap a superb move off!! This was exciting stuff!! We hadn’t seen anything like this at Millmoor in nigh on 16 months!
We then got sloppy and turned in to a bit of a pub team. Defensive errors and slack play could have seen that three goal lead whittled down but Blackpool were so poor that they couldn’t capitalise. We rounded it off with a cracking goal and a hat-trick for Deon Burton when he rifled home from 16 yards after McLaren cut back well. All in all a good day, great to walk away from the ground having seen a win! Tough game at Oldham on Monday and although I was against the sacking of Ronnie Moore and still hold him in fairly high regard, I do hope we stuff them.