Holloway feels hard done by

18 October 2010 07:00

Carlos Tevez steered Manchester City to second place in the table - but Ian Holloway claimed the striker was lucky to get a brace.

The Blackpool manager complained after the 3-2 home defeat that Tevez was offside for his first goal and committed a foul against Ian Evatt in the build-up to his second. Holloway was also aggrieved that Gary Taylor-Fletcher had a "goal" disallowed by referee Phil Dowd in the second half with the scores level.

Holloway said: "The big decisions swung the game their way and Goliath has just walked off with all three points. David has been left to fill his slingshot. I wonder what the score would have been otherwise. I think David would have been happy and Goliath would have had a mark where we had hit him."

Blackpool carved out a number of good chances in the second half only for Tevez to make the breakthrough in the 67th minute. He got in front of Craig Cathcart to force the ball after substitute David Silva had played it across.

Holloway, serving a one-match touchline ban, saw his side equalise in the 78th minute with substitute Marlon Harewood guiding a header into the corner. The home side's celebrations lasted only a minute with Tevez regaining the lead for City. He nicked the ball of Evatt and rifled in a shot that took a deflection off Cathcart.

Silva added a glorious third in the 90th minute with a mazy run into the area before Taylor-Fletcher got a second for the home side in stoppage time.

Holloway added on Sky Sports: "He (Dowd) has got three massive decisions wrong, which cost my team against one of the so-called big teams. We could have been one point behind them if things had gone our way, as they clearly should have done.

"We're getting absolutely bo diddly squat, week in, week out. But there you go, such is life."

City manager Roberto Mancini was pleased to see his side climb onto the shoulders of Chelsea and believes they can still improve.

He said: "We are continuing to change our mentality and it was an important result for us. We worked hard in the first half and scored three goals in the second half which is not easy. Blackpool played very well."

Source: PA