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Two goals from Stephen Dobbie earned Blackpool victory over Watford and further cemented their position in the play-off places. The striker – on-loan from Swansea – scored his first by beating keeper Tomasz Kuszczak after a mazy run.

The defeat brought an end to Watford’s seven-match unbeaten run which had raised hopes of gatecrashing the play-offs at Vicarage Road.

Sean Dyche, the Watford manager, could not hide his feelings after his side let their unbeaten run slip. “I’m disappointed in our performance today. We’ve gone along very well lately, a couple of hiccups since Christmas but got over that swiftly and had a great run, so I’m disappointed.

Palpable disappointment.  Obviously.  And that’s the fault of nobody bar those of us who’d allowed ourselves to get a bit carried away with things.  There are mitigating circumstances, there’s context, there’s stuff that didn’t quite fall our way (see below).  But there’s no two ways of interpreting your visitors being able to take off two key attacking players in the closing twenty minutes or so, for a bit of a rest.