Head coach Joey Barton spoke to press after his side overcame Fylde Coast rivals Blackpool 5-4 on penalties in Round Two of the Papa John’s Trophy.
Both teams battled it out throughout the 90 minutes but, with nothing separating the sides at the final whistle, the game went to penalties. Mark Duffy’s penalty in the shootout was the difference in the end, as he struck the ball past Jack Sims in the Blackpool goal
Here’s what he had to say:
On the game…
“I thought it was a tight just like Saturday, we have both made a load of changes. It was a really good game with opportunities at both ends, at times [Alex] Cairns has had to make a couple of nice saves, their keeper was brought into action a few times.
“It was two evenly matched teams, but we came out on top through penalties it’s really pleasing to progress to get a bit of local pride back.”
On the youngster’s chances….
“It was good for our younger players to match up against league one senior players, our youngsters like [Jay] Matete, James Hill, Morgan Boyes, Sam Stubbs, Harvey Saunders, Shayden Morris, and Ryan Rydel earned great experience they can use as a platform to drive their first-team experience with us in the league campaign.
“It’s about getting that balance out with the youth mixing with the senior players as they have a lot of know-how, they have earned the right to be senior players you don’t want to put out lambs to the slaughter.”
On the squad’s resilience…
“We’re disappointed we didn’t win in the league and we were desperate to progress and win tonight, on the backside of that I felt it wouldn’t be the right thing to do to take the youngster out of the competition just to beat Blackpool.
“We reacted well to the loss on the weekend and tonight though penalties we progressed and over the course of the 90 minutes and that also adds to the young lad’s experience to play with the mix of skipper Paul Coutts, Ched Evans and Mark Duffy who needed minutes.”