The Latics won the crucial six-pointer match over Blackpool at Boundary Park on Monday to haul themselves out of the relegation spots and hopefully to begin a run to survival. The visitors took the lead in the first half but goals from Jack Byrne and Eoin Doyle clinched the valuable points in a great fightback.
Obviously happy with the result manager Richie Wellens said, “The biggest thing was the result. It’s a massive win for us and we deserved it. Jack Byrne was brilliant when he came on. It wasn’t easy for me to drop one of my best players, but he channelled his frustration in exactly the right way. We have been around the bottom six or seven for the majority of the season, so we know the next few games will define where we end up. It was really important to beat Blackpool because they are one of those teams who are near us in the table. This is League One football and a lot of things can happen. It isn’t easy to build momentum if you aren’t one of the top teams, but it can swing very quickly. It isn’t long since we picked up 11 points from five games, but then we had a couple of disappointing results. Hopefully these three points will give us confidence and help us to kick on.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s from behind or not, it just shows that we have good character. It was a strange game. I thought we were good in the first half and we come in at half time and I didn’t really know what to say to the players because we were on the front foot and were creating chances. I don’t know how we missed some of them and I asked for more of the same. We changed a little bit because I still thought they were a bit of a threat. All in all, it was a massive result for us. We did everything to win the game and I thought we deserved it.”
“I want to pick Byrne because the talent is there for everyone to see. It’s not easy as a young manager to drop one of my best players but there needs to be a response and action taken when I didn’t think we had a great performance against Wigan in the second half and I needed to freshen it up with the biggest thing getting Jack angry. I thought he was going to run to the touchline near me when he scored and I love that. Channel your anger in the right way and he did that and he was brilliant when he did that. Doyle scores from a corner even though he is not the biggest and that shows his clever movement. I was really impressed with him today because that’s the first time I’ve played him up front on his own for the last 50/60 minutes and he was knocking defenders about and he was a real handful. When you know you have Doyle then you know you will get the chances that come with that.”