Steve Lovell slams Gillingham effort in defeat to Blackpool

Posted Sunday, April 22, 2018 by PA

Gillingham boss Steve Lovell felt let down after watching his side capitulate to a 3-0 defeat at home to Blackpool.

Kyle Vassell had already hit the bar when he gave the Tangerines the lead midway through the first half, before Nathan Delfouneso made it two and Kelvin Mellor completed the scoring late on.

Blackpool also missed a penalty – Jay Spearing hit the post from the spot – as the Gills surrendered meekly and Lovell was appalled by the display his players put in.

“If I was standing there watching that I’d be disgusted,” he fumed. “The supporters are quite right in their comments because I’m with them.

“It wasn’t very nice to watch. I felt on Tuesday night (against Rotherham) the players gave everything – here the majority of them didn’t.

“I think they came off the pitch thinking they could have done more. Hopefully they’ll put it right what they didn’t do today next weekend at Bristol Rovers, as I feel let down.

“They owe the club a performance, they owe the fans a performance.

“I think we lacked courage in the first half. People were afraid to get on the ball. At half-time I spoke about characters.

“If people haven’t got the courage to stand up in times like this then perhaps they’re not good enough for us. We had a go in the second half but we were 2-0 down. We never looked like scoring.”

Victory was Blackpool’s fourth in a row in League One.

They caused debutant Gills goalkeeper Tom Hadler all sorts of problems, including Jimmy Ryan’s 25-yarder forcing him to spill at the feet of Vassell for the opener.

But despite the comfortable nature of the victory, Pools boss Gary Bowyer felt there was still more to come from his side.

“At the end of the day we scored three goals away from home and we’ve kept a clean sheet so I’m delighted,” he explained.

“But I thought we made the game so hard for ourselves – it shouldn’t have been as hard as we made it.

“I enjoyed watching us in the first half. Second half it was painful. We spoke at half-time about keeping the game simple and doing the basics right – we went and did the total opposite.

“We started the game so well and we got our noses in front. It was fantastic from Jimmy to test the young goalkeeper like that on his debut for the opening goal.

“Then we scored another good goal through Nathan Delfouneso and we had opportunities to take that further without being troubled.

“But we made it hard work for ourselves by missing the penalty and we knew Gillingham would keep coming at us.”