Stoke City boss Michael O'Neill provides honest assessment of his side's defeat to Blackpool

The Seasiders claimed a richly deserved three points thanks to Josh Bowler’s strike four minutes from time.

Neil Critchley’s side were the dominant team from the first minute, but missed some gilt-edged chances in the first-half.

But they stayed patient and struck at the death – in front of the travelling 2,100 Seasiders – to make it back-to-back wins.

As for Stoke, they’re now without a win in their last six and have lost their last three.

“We’re really disappointed,” O’Neill told Stoke’s official website.

“I thought first-half we never got to the level of the game. We were a little bit better in the second-half but we didn’t deserve to take anything from the game.

“We freshened the team up which we felt was the right thing to do after the exertions of midweek. We brought Jagielka and Baker back in, Vrancic starting but ultimately we never got anywhere near what we’d hoped and how we set the team up.

“We’ve lost late goals in a number of games in recent weeks and that’s a concern – it’s a mentality thing as much as anything else.

“All I can say is that we’re not preparing the team any differently than we did when we first came through the door.

"We’ve tried to bring the age of the squad down, make it more cost effectively but ultimately when you get performances like that, that’s hard to justify.”