Ormerod earns plaudits from Holloway for his history-making display
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Your support makes all the difference.Blackpool manager Ian Holloway hailed Brett Ormerod after the veteran striker made history with his goal in Tuesday's 3-1 victory over Tottenham. Ormerod became the first Blackpool player to score in all four divisions when he slotted home his side's third in their impressive triumph at Bloomfield Road.
The 34-year-old has played a limited role since securing Blackpool's promotion to the Premier League last season with the winner against Cardiff in the Championship play-off final at Wembley. Holloway lavished praise on Ormerod, though, before admitting the player had certainly staked a claim for more first-team action.
"I'm delighted for Brett Ormerod," Holloway said. "I'd like to thank Mr and Mrs Ormerod for Brett! I think what he has done for us in this match, what he did for us in May – I'm so proud to have been a part of it. His dad will probably say, 'Why aren't you playing him a bit more often?' I might have to if he keeps doing that." Blackpool captain Charlie Adam – who so nearly joined Spurs in January – opened the scoring with a firm penalty in the 18th minute after Sébastien Bassong had fouled D J Campbell in the box. Campbell then netted his ninth goal of the campaign a minute before the interval and substitute Ormerod made it 3-0 with 10 minutes remaining, rendering Roman Pavlyuchenko's deflected effort in stoppage time a mere consolation.
The final result was remarkable not only for the way in which it brought Tottenham back down to earth after their famous Champions League win against Milan last week, but also because they had so many opportunities to score over the course of the 90 minutes. Inaccurate shooting and last-ditch clearances were what kept denying Spurs a breakthrough, along with some superb saves from Seasiders goalkeeper Richard Kingson.
Kingson also had some uncertain moments but Holloway would not hear a bad word said about the Ghanaian. When it was suggested to him that Kingson had looked "jittery" at times, Holloway said: "We're all a bit jittery – we're taking on one of the best teams in Europe and recently, when we've done that, we've let plenty of goals in.
"I don't blame Richard at all. He is the only goalkeeper who has really been fit, the only one who has had to shoulder that pressure and no matter what he does, he is always confident. It might not go right, but he is always confident. The other week he made a mistake against West Ham and then he did a Cruyff turn on the edge of the box. He keeps smiling.
"Some of the defending [against Tottenham] wasn't quite right either and shouting and bawling at your keeper doesn't really help – we are all about encouragement."
Tottenham would have gone third in the table if they had won the match and their manager Harry Redknapp acknowledged they had let an important chance to consolidate their place in the Champions League positions pass them by.
"It's a big missed opportunity," Redknapp said. "Blackpool have beaten teams like Liverpool here and it is not an easy place to come.
"Ian gets the absolute maximum out of players and what he has done this year is fantastic. If he keeps them up, he should be manager of the year, without any doubt."
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