Blackpool boss Ian Holloway denies his players turned on eachother at halftime of their mauling at Chelsea.

Holloway changed tack at half-time, lining up his players in the formation that served them so well in victories over Wigan and Newcastle, and, although Chelsea continued to bombard their goal, they avoided further damage.

"People are assuming it was an argument, a disagreement - it was not," Holloway said. "It was people saying: 'We can't do this,' 'We can't do that,' or 'We should be a lot deeper.' I don't blame them, if they'd have sat there and not said a word I would have thought there was something wrong with my boys.

"Their egos were smarting. They didn't want to produce a first half like that but unfortunately they could do nothing to stop what Chelsea did to us. They had listened to me and it didn't go well so they thought they could say some things themselves. I soon put that right. I've got a proud group of lads who were smarting a bit. I had to shut them up and crack the whip a bit.

"For the second half I managed to calm them down, talk about what I felt, change the tactics and it worked, to some extent. I had to hold my hand up and I took full blame because I told them to do something that didn't work at all. I haven't seen that before or had to make allowances to track full-backs before and I will never do that again."