We have to expect moments where not everything goes to plan

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Michael Appleton watched his Blackpool side go two goals behind early in the game, saw them concede a third to go in 3-1 down at half time, but then enjoyed a second half that saw them take home a point from a 3-3 draw.

Delighted after the game, he said: “Firstly, I think we should have won the game. Given how we started and how poor we were in the opening ten minutes, I think it would be easy for me to focus on that, but, I think the players deserve huge credit for the way we responded after we took a step back and dusted ourselves down, particularly in the second half.

Embed from Getty Images“I’m really proud of how the team responded in those second forty-five minutes. You have moments in games as a manager where you find out more about your players and what they can do. After the disappointment from the game last Saturday against Swansea, I think we’ve seen a great reaction from the squad in the midweek game at QPR and today against Burnley.

“To come back from 2-0 down and 3-1 down is a great effort. We created so many chances that we could have won the match three or four times over, they weren’t just half chances too, they were real goalscoring opportunities. There’s a little bit of frustration in the dressing room because of that, because we had them on the ropes towards the end.”

He added: “At half time in particular, the message was to defend a little bit higher up the pitch. You could feel the anxiety within the stadium every time the ball was passed backwards, whether it was to their goalkeeper or the two centre halves. There was a desire to get forward quickly, and we jumped on that and used that to our advantage. In terms of creating opportunities, being forward thinking, brave and aggressive, the lads did that in abundance today, and we can be pleased with our effort.

Embed from Getty ImagesVincent Kompany acknowledged us losing our way in the second half. “There was such a big contrast between our first half and second half,” he said. “The first half was almost as good as we’ve seen and the second half was the first time we’ve really struggled, so we have to make sure we regain the consistency in games. Obviously there’s frustration at how we conceded the goals, we have to stay robust and I think we were a little overwhelmed by our own doing.

“We have to take lessons from this. I felt in the second half a lot was about spaces. If you find the right spaces, it’s an incredible way to create a high quality chance. We’ve made good use of it so far this season but in this game we got punished.

“You prepare for a game. Blackpool were organised and sat back a little bit. They were compact but that dynamic changed in the second half and it’s about recognising that, and during the game we didn’t recognise it. We have to expect moments where not everything goes to plan.

“In the second half, Blackpool had a go and that offers other opportunities, you can really kill the game in those moments and I think on another day we’d have been better but today we just gave them momentum. Momentum is key in this league and as soon as we lost it we couldn’t recover it and then we couldn’t be solid and we conceded chances.

“You have to give credit to Blackpool, they kept being dangerous and brave and if everything goes smoothly you can pick them off. We just weren’t capable of doing so and even in moments where we had control we just made silly mistakes and got them back into the game ourselves.”

Kompany had a word about two of his loan players, Nathan Tella and Ian Maatsen. He said of Tella: “”Introducing Nathan worked well, he will get more goals this season.” But of Maatsen and the red card, Kompany said: “We had momentum going down to 10 men. It’s a shame as Ian’s an important player. It’ll happen to him again in his career, as he’s a good player, I spoke to him about this. You have to take every advantage you get given, let the other guy get sent off. It was a horrible challenge but he’s got to learn.”

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