Four goals, a clean sheet and a brace for the young striker he recently signed; Sam Allardyce had every reason to be happy in last night's post-match press conference, which we bring you exclusively in full..
Sam: with the matches to come that was even more special, I guess - and confidence boosting?Absolutely. Especially at home, because it has been our Achilles Heel as everybody knows results-wise. Today we got everything right. We were defensively sound, [had] quality of play in possession, quality of finishing when the opportunities arose. It's not often I can say I'm a little disappointed we've only scored four, with the chances we created.
So there were a number of other chances that we had that could have been converted, but I like the way we finished Blackpool off in the second half - and I liked the way that we took the goals and created the chances that we did.
I liked the way we defended today because obviously Blackpool, unusually coming here, were a very attacking-minded side and left a lot of gaps and a lot of spaces. It was one of the reasons why we played two up top, because they like to push the full-backs on and it left them exposed.
Both centre-halfs were left on their own just facing John Carew and [Sam] Baldock. Those two were our best players today and that's the main reason we won four-nil. You have to give the rest of the lads credit for the defensive work and also the supply they gave and the opportunities they gave to create and score chances.
What exactly did you say at half-time?
Score the next goal as quickly as we can. If we can create the chances we created in the first half, this half we must convert them because we've missed too many. John [Carew] got us off to a great start with a very good header then he had two one-on-ones. Sam Baldock had one he put over the bar, so we had a number of other chances. There was a bit of a bad shout off John Carew's header in the first half for Sam Baldock to go through; he was well onside, rather than off.
If we see how he finishes in a one-on-one [situation] today I would have probably expected him to have scored that. As a player, in terms of his finishing it's something we haven't got [elsewhere in the squad]. We've got good centre forwards; Freddie [Piquionne], John [Carew] and Carlton [Cole] who will all score goals [but] Sam looks like he can score many types. For instance, he was probably the only player on the field apart from Kevin Phillips who could have scored the second [goal].
Can he fit in any system that you choose to play?
No. Not any system. He was unfortunate the last time we played two up top, which was against Ipswich. We were dreadful so couldn't get any service to him. We ended up pulling him out wide, just to stop the opposition being better than us at that particular time; we never really got into the flow of that game.
But today we got into the flow of the game and once he felt his way into it - you'v got to bear in mind it's only his second full start at a higher level with a higher competitive edge - to play as well as we did as a team will always benefit Sam Baldock, because we'll give him the opportunities to finish games in terms of goals scored with chances created. So, that's the importance of him.
One or two systems; 4-4-1-1 but perhaps 4-4-2. You can try him on the right in a 4-3-3 but you might lose the goalscoring knack there. But it does depend who we're going to be playing against and how we're going to play. We're not just going to stick to one particular system because we won't get automatic promotion if we do that.
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