Gary Caldwell over the moon to see Exeter bounce back against Blackpool

Exeter manager Gary Caldwell was delighted with the emphatic nature of his side’s 4-1 thumping of Blackpool, which earned the Grecians their first League One win of the season.

Reece Cole’s early goal gave City the perfect start inside four minutes, which was doubled by Jack Fitzwater’s header after 15 minutes. Blackpool pulled a goal back through Ashley Fletcher, but second-half strikes from strikers Jayden Wareham – his first for the club – and substitute Sonny Cox sealed a thoroughly deserved win.

“That’s the beauty of football. This time last week, we as a staff, players, fans and as a club were really disappointed with our defeat and performance at Doncaster and this week is such a different feeling,” Caldwell said.

“It was a huge reaction, a huge response from the team and I said to the players that our performance started on Tuesday morning when we were honest about the Doncaster performance. We fed back both ways, staff to players and players to staff, we found a game plan and a way to beat a very good Blackpool team.

“I thought we were by far the better team in every aspect of the game – and that is credit to the players. I thought they were absolutely brilliant.

“Our fans understand what this football club is and at this level, we are really stretched. It is going to take staff, players, supporters, board – everyone – aligned and committed for the goals we are setting out to achieve.

“We know there will be difficult moments, but we always find a way to come out on the right side of that and we will have those again in the future. This is a really good day, but we have to remain emotionally stable and not get too high when we win, or too low when we lose.”

Blackpool boss Steve Bruce apologised to the 500-plus travelling fans that made the 560-mile round trip Devon.

“It was certainly a tough afternoon and arguably the worst since I have been at the club, in the year or so that I have been here,” Bruce said. “I apologise to the supporters, who certainly deserve more than that.

“It’s a long, long way and must have taken them hours either yesterday or today and we just haven’t performed well enough in every department.

“I think everything you throw at me, I’ll just agree. It was a slow start, sloppy, we didn’t take part and it wasn’t good enough with or without the ball. There was no real urgency about us, we were lethargic – I could go on and on and on really, couldn’t I?

“We have prided ourselves with how we play away, but today, we haven’t done the basics well enough. We conceded bad goals last week and today, it is set pieces that we haven’t defended. It was a catalogue of errors repeatedly and a difficult afternoon.”