Curle admits disappointing Cobblers were second best at Bloomfield Road

The first-half was a relatively even affair but Town paid the price for some soft defending when Marvin Ekpiteta turned in from close-range on 12 minutes.

The visitors struggled to create anything after half-time and Jerry Yates scored late on to complete a well-deserved victory for Blackpool.

"If you're going to go away from home and give soft goals away, there's no denying that you're going to be in for a difficult evening and I think that was the case for us tonight," said Curle.

"The frustrating thing for me is that there were times when we got good entries into the final third but our delivery and our pass election was poor.

"We started the game okay - Ryan (Watson) had a couple of shots and Sam (Hoskins) had an effort - but apart from that our play in the final third was disappointing and our set-pieces also need to improve because we need to be making first contact.

"The two culprits when we worked glaring opportunities to cross the ball were Peter (Kioso) and (Joseph) Millsy, who are two of our better technicians in wide areas, so that's disappointing.

"We had decent play and got ourselves in good positions and we didn't deliver in the final third, but we will get better."