While Saturday was a great result, I did think it was slightly flattering to us because I thought that Blackpool showed they were as good a team as I thought they would be. They have got a good manager in charge there and he has got them playing good football.

When they got it back to to 2-1 it was during a good spell for them ,and I will admit that I was concerned they would score during that period. But, lo and behold we went on and scored what was the crucial goal of the game.

Although it was a great goal and a great time to score it, it looked more than a bit offside to be honest. My reaction in those situations is always to look at the linesman and most of the time I anticipate the flag going up when I think it is offside.

On this occasion though I was amazed it didn't go up. But there were three occasions in the first half where our players weren't offside and they were given offside in similar situations.

They may not have been in as advanced positions, but it would got us in behind them so one out of the four is not bad and it worked in our favour there is no doubt about that.

I know Ollie was a little frustrated after the game at both that decision and at what he thought should have been a penalty.

He definitely had more justification for the offside, but not with the penalty. With crowded penalty areas, when there are bodies all over the place you have to be 100% certain it was a penalty and I honestly didn't see an incident that I thought the referee could blow up for.

If he had given something I would have been astounded. Whether Ollie has seen something I have missed, I honestly don't know.

I suppose that was a little bit in our favour, but luck comes with performances anyway. If you rely on luck to win you something you will be waiting a long time for your prize.

For me luck, goals, entertainment etc are bi-products of people working very hard for each other. You have got to have a solid performance throughout the side.

I actually felt that, on Saturday, out of the 11 players we had on the pitch nine were outstanding. But that was fine because when that happens you can carry the other two a bit. You can't have half of your team performing well and expect results, or rely on luck.

Overall though Neil and I were happy with the performance. I said to Neil after the game that that was the best defensive performance from our back four and goalkeeper I had seen in some time because they really had to be on their toes.

In truth I didn't really fancy their back line throughout the whole game. That is not to say I think they are bad players, but rather that they were poor on the day and ours were brilliant, especially Danny Butterfield.

The decision to bring him may have surprised a few people considering we had Johnny Ertl and Clint Hill who have done a job there before, but it was discussed on the Thursday and, from my point of view, I was never concerned about it.

When Jose went down with flu in the week there was the option to play Clint at centre half and bring in Lee Hills at left back, but that is too many changes. The team is confident at the moment and the less changes we make the better.

As for Johnny, we put him in on the back of his performance against Derby County in that holding midfield area. The thing with Johnny is that he has got a very simple game.

He doesn't try to complicate things. In fact when he does he gets in a mess anyway, and we are well aware of that. But because he keeps his game simple we are not concerned about Johnny in that position.

We were also pleased to be able to give Nick Carle a good half-an-hour. The thing with Nick now is that he has World Cup ambitions and World Cup players need to be playing 90 minutes of football regularly, which he has not been doing.

I have said this about him before - Nick Carle is probably one of the best pros I have come across. He is not in the team and things are not going his way but he has never moped around. He has never complained or whined about it; okay he has asked for an explanation, which is rightfully so but he has never been a bother to anybody.

He is never disruptive when some people in that situation can be disruptive. He has done nothing other than be a perfect professional, and all credit to him.

But we are aware that he has international ambitions so we are looking at possibilities of loan situations where he is going to get 90 minutes of football.

However, while we want him to get more games, football being football you always have to take into account factors such as injuries or suspensions, the side could be on a bad run and then we need him back in the frame.

But loans are something that we have looked at because Nick, while he is the hardest trainer at the club, is in risk of losing that cutting edge in his game.

That can happen no matter who you are. You could be Nick Carle or David Beckham, if you are not playing regular first team football you will lose the cutting edge and when you lose you that all your sharpness goes and you become blunt yourself, so it is something we are very conscious of. 

At the moment his move is a million miles away from a probability but there are possibilities.

This week we have trained in complete reverse from how we did during the last international break. After what happened last week we wanted to ensure that it would not happen again, so somewhere down the line one of these routines is going to work!

We gave the players time off during the early part of the week and now they return to training where will work them very hard. They will then have the full weekend off and recoup for a full week of training ahead of Cardiff.

Cardiff are the in-form team right now and are scoring a lot of goals, especially Michael Chopra who is on fire at the moment.

While his goalscoring record so far is impressive, and I am not being funny now, but if you spend £4 million on a centre forward you are going to expect him to score goals - you can almost buy a small football club for that amount of money. 

Chopra is a semi-Premiership striker, probably not good enough for the top flight but certainly for the bottom half of it, but when you spend that amount of money on centre forwards then of course it is going to work.

But we look forward to the game. The boys will be well prepared for it and in good spirits so it should make for a great game. 

Mick's blog will continue throughout the season right here on cpfc.co.uk.

With no league game this weekend, why not send in topics for us to put to Mick to talk about by contacting us on info@cpfc.co.uk.