HARRY Redknapp slammed his wasteful front line for missing “eight open goals” as Tottenham slumped to a shock defeat at Blackpool last night.

Spurs had 25 attempts on goal at Bloomfield Road, 17 more than Ian Holloway’s Seasiders, but contrived to lose 3-1 on the north-west coast.

Trailing 2-0 at half-time, the Lilywhites laid siege to the Blackpool goal in the second half – only to go 3-0 down after 80 minutes before Roman Pavlyuchenko’s injury-time consolation goal, which took a big deflection.

The surprise defeat cost Tottenham the opportunity to leapfrog Manchester City into third place, and take a five-point lead over fifth-placed Chelsea in the battle for the top four.

“It’s obviously damaging. It was a game I thought we would win but you can’t miss chances like that. It was unreal - you had to see it to believe it,” said Redknapp.

“I’ve never seen so many open goals missed in my life. You can’t miss eight open goals and expect to win.

“Our strikers haven’t got enough goals this year - it took an own goal in the end! It was a great opportunity to put some daylight between us and Chelsea, and go above Man City.

“But we kept missing open goals - three yards out, four yards out, missing, missing, missing. In the second half it was incredible sitting there watching it.”

Redknapp feels that, had Spurs taken one of their gilt-edged chances after half-time and halved the deficit, his side would have gone on to win.

“One goal would have turned the game around, no doubt about that,” he said. “At 2-1 I think it would have changed attitudes and everything, like it did the other week when Blackpool were 2-0 up against Manchester United with 20 minutes to go [and lost 3-2].

“We just needed a goal and we kept missing. If we’d stuck them away we’d all be sitting here saying ‘we’ve come back and won 4-2 in the end’. They probably wouldn’t have got their third goal.”

Redknapp was also critical of Sebastien Bassong’s challenge on DJ Campbell, which allowed Charlie Adam to put Blackpool 1-0 up from the penalty spot after 18 minutes.

“You can’t present goals to the other team like we did. We gave a penalty away under no pressure - it was a scandalous challenge - and then after that we can’t convert chance after chance,” said the manager.

“When you’ve got good strikers who are good goalscorers you’re expecting them to stick them in. We’re sitting there and there are balls dropping on their heads. We’re waiting for them to head it into the goal from five yards out and they’re not scoring. It was just unreal.

“But that’s how it goes. Full credit to Blackpool, what they’ve done here has just been absolutely amazing. It must be great for the fans, beating a club like Tottenham is a big scalp for them, for sure. If Ian Holloway keeps them up he should be the manager of the year.”