Reaction From Last Night

Ian Holloway admitted after last night's defeat against Sheffield Wednesday that he was thorougly disappointed with his side's performance:

'That was probably one of the worst performances I've seen from my boys.

'There was a passage of play that was a real comedy of errors where myself and Alan (Irvine) looked at each other and laughed. It was when my goalie shanked it and my centre half fell over it.

'We huffed and puffed a lot but I can't remember a shot we had at goal.'

However, he defended his decision to drop Neal Eardley, Barry Bannan and Ishmel from the squad (although the decision to drop Eardley and Bannan seems redundant if they are injured as has been reported - if they are, then they wouldn't have played anyway, and if they aren't, then it seems like Ollie is making a rod for his own back, especially after saying today that the trio may not be recalled for the Preston game - in my opinion, Ollie's made his point admirably, now it's time to move on and not risk cutting his nose off to spite his face).

'Do I have any regrets? I regret they went out at the wrong time,' said Ollie.

'You saw us play. I had to bring in three people who aren't quite as well rehearsed and we didn't look cohesive.

'I don't know whether I'll bring them back for Saturday yet.

'We also had our player of the season (Charlie Adam) banned. Charlie's a big player for us and we missed his energy, his belief and his ability.'

Ollie did add though that playing Preston on Saturday is probably the game that the team need to fire themselves up and get back on track:

'I don't think there is any better game for us than Preston at the weekend.

'I'll have a good look at what happened last night and try and pick a team that can go to Preston and beat them.'

Meanwhile, Owls boss Alan Irvine maintains that despite their current bad run, the Seasiders are one of the best sides in the division and contenders for the playoffs:

'Blackpool are a good team, I like the way that Ian's got them playing.

'I still think that Blackpool will win an awful lot of games between now and then end of the season and they will be genuine contenders for the play-offs.'

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