Neil Critchley was relieved to see his Blackpool side overcome some early nerves to get back to winning ways with a 2-0 win over Lincoln at Bloomfield Road.
CJ Hamilton wrapped up the points in stoppage time after Oliver Casey’s opener to make it 29 points at home so far this season, the best return in Sky Bet League One.
And after successive losses after Christmas, Critchley was thrilled to see his team grow into the game.
He said: “It’s a nice feeling, a couple of goals and a clean sheet. A good way to start the New Year in positive fashion. It was important after our last two results.
“We were lacking early on in the game in terms of belief and energy, which is understandable on both accounts considering the results we’ve had, but I am proud of the efforts of the players.
“We were keen to rectify our last two defeats, it’s been tough and that showed early on in the game but we have to trust our process.
“We’re good at home. Our record shows that, but what we need to do if we are to be near the top of the league is we’ve got to be better away from home.
“We’ve played some of the bigger teams at the top away from home already, so they have to come to our place.”
Alex Mitchell volleyed the first real chance over for Lincoln, with Casey opening the scoring on the half-hour when he nodded home Karamoko Dembele’s whipped free-kick.
That seemed to fire up Blackpool, who threatened to extend their lead when Owen Dale saw his effort deflected over before James Husband clipped the top of the crossbar with a header.
They continued to press in the second half and eventually Hamilton wrapped up the points, leaving Lincoln head coach Michael Skubala to rue his side’s failure to deal with a set-piece.
He said: “I thought we were in the game, and we were doing well up until they scored the first goal.
“I thought actually we started to take the game to them and they have got one of the best if not the best home record in the league so it was always going to be tough.
“We looked good, but we’ve been done on a set-piece and we need to improve in that area. We need to improve because that changes the game a little bit, well a lot. But we were still creating chances after that so it was disappointing.
“That’s where we are and that’s where we have to improve. We’ve got to be more ruthless in the box when we get there and we have to be more ruthless in our own box so at the minute we’re doing okay but it’s not enough.”
Real Madrid 0-4 Barcelona: Guijarro brace sets visitors up for Clasico glory
Patri Guijarro's first-half brace set Barcelona on their way to a thumping 4-0 win over rivals Real Madrid in Liga F on Saturday.
Claudia Pina and Alexia Putellas were also on target as Barcelona continued their perfect start to the season, extending their lead at the top of the table.
The visitors dominated from the off, as Guijarro broke the deadlock inside the fourth minute, tapping in from Putellas' flick-on from a corner.
Cata Coll was forced into a big save to deny Alba Redondo an equaliser shortly after, but Madrid's hope was soon dented as Guijarro picked out the bottom corner with a superb long-range strike for her second.
Pina strengthened their lead six minutes before the break, clinically slotting past Misa with her low strike.
Putellas added some more gloss to the scoreline with four minutes remaining of normal time, beating the Madrid keeper with a lovely dink to bring up her 199th goal for the club.
Barcelona have won all 10 of their games, and now sit eight points clear of Madrid, who suffered their first league defeat of the campaign.
Data Debrief: Total dominance
Madrid will have felt fairly confident coming into this game after a strong start to their season, but they once again failed to find a way past their Clasico rival.
Los Blancos have lost every single game they have played against Barcelona in all competitions, with this their 15th such meeting.
Barcelona smothered their attack early on, restricting their hosts to just one shot in the first half, while they had 10.
Indonesia 0-4 Japan: Visitors stay unbeaten with rout
Japan continued their unbeaten start to World Cup qualifying with a 4-0 victory over Indonesia on Friday.
Two goals from the visitors in either half were enough to seal the three points and get them back to winning ways after a stalemate with Australia last time out.
Ragnar Oratmangoen should have put Indonesia ahead, but he hesitated one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and Japan did not look back after that. They got a bit of fortune with their first goal, Justin Hubner deflecting a cross into his own net in the 35th minute.
Takumi Minamino got their second just before the break, finishing off a pacy counter-attack by darting onto the end of Kaoru Mitoma’s cross to sweep it past Maarten Paes.
While there was not much the goalkeeper could do with that one, he was at fault for the third as he gifted the ball to Hidemasa Morita, who coolly picked out the bottom corner just after the break.
Yukinari Sugawara came off the bench to round off the scoring in the 69th minute. He raced down the right wing and instead of looking to his options, he rifled it in from a tight angle at the near post.
Japan are up to 13 points after five games, sitting top of Group C, while Indonesia are bottom, still in search of their first win.
Data Debrief: Clinically done
For a team still chasing their first win, Japan are probably not high on the list of opponents they would want to face, and Indonesia were undone by their visitors.
Hajime Moriyasu's side created 0.79 expected goals (xG) to Indonesia's 0.72, while they only had four more shots than their hosts (12 compared to eight).
Japan took their chances, and though the win margin may look harsh, they were deserving of the three points, having dominated throughout the game.
Jamaica 0-1 United States: Pepi give visitors advantage in Nations League quarter-final
Ricardo Pepi's first-half strike gave the United States a 1-0 advantage over Jamaica after the first leg of their Concacaf Nations League quarter-final.
The hosts saw a penalty saved in the first half before their frustrations were compounded late on thanks to Mason Holgate's red card.
The USA had the lead just five minutes in – having smothered a Jamaica attack at one end, the visitors caught them out with a pacy counter-attack, with Pepi sweeping it into the back of the net.
Shortly after, Shamar Nicholson was brought down by Matt Turner when he tried to take it around him, but the goalkeeper made amends, diving low to his right to deny Demarai Gray from 12 yards.
In the second half, Holgate was denied a tap-in by Yunus Musah before Turner scrambled to stop Leon Bailey's corner from nestling into the net as Jamaica searched for an equaliser.
With 86 minutes on the clock, Holgate received a second yellow card in just over 10 minutes for dragging Brandon Vazquez back, meaning he will miss the return leg in Missouri on Monday.
Data Debrief: Hitting the mark
Pepi got the all-important goal on Thursday, and is the fourth player to score 12 goals for the USA before turning 22 years old, joining Landon Donovan, Jozy Altidore and Christian Pulisic.
But it was perhaps Turner who actually had the most vital interventions; he has now saved three of the eight penalties he's faced for the USA, including two against Jamaica.
Mauricio Pochettino also could not have asked for a better result from his first competitive game in charge of the Stars and Stripes as he became just the third full-time manager to win his first competitive away match, joining Bob Bradley (2008) and Steve Sampson (1996).
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