Millwall manager Ian Holloway admitted he would have been “absolutely fuming” if his side had ended up dropping points in today’s 2-1 Den win over Blackpool.

The Lions broke the deadlock on 33 minutes when Jack Powell’s free-kick from the right picked out an unmarked Scott McDonald, who drilled a low shot beyond Joe Lewis.

McDonald turned provider as the Lions doubled their advantage six minutes after the break, delivering the cross which was fired home by Scott Malone.

Blackpool substitute Nile Ranger halved the deficit with a well-struck 71st minute shot and they were almost back on terms moments later when the scorer set up Steven Davies, although fortunately for the Lions his attempt went over the bar.

Francis Zoko hit the side-netting with six minutes remaining as the Tangerines went in search of an equaliser.

But the Lions held on to go into the international break fifth in the table with 10 points on the board.

Holloway said: “We got ourselves in a great situation, a great second goal and then we’ve just got to learn to manage the game.

“I think that will come. It better do because the nerves were jangling and everything went out of the window.

“The most bizarre goal I’ve ever seen where we’ve got a throw in and we let our bigger centre half go up for a long throw in and then we choose not to throw it to him.

“How stupid can you get?

“If we are going to let him run all that way then throw it at him, it’s as simple as that.

“And when we didn’t the next choice then was to shoot, which we should have done at the start of the game in the first half.”

The Lions boss added: “We could have just took care of the ball for another five or ten minutes. We had no shape and they scored so that made everything go out of the window.

“We then panic, they put other people on, they went forward, their manager is very good at what he does and he knows it.

“We’ve ended up scrapping something where we could have been really comfortable and I’d  have felt a lot happier.

“But my team is still learning, I’m delighted we can learn from a victory and I’m glad we didn’t throw that away because I would have been absolutely fuming on the overall balance of play.”

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