11 wins at home, only 4 away: What's the reason behind Blackpool's poor away record?

The Seasiders head to already-relegated Barnsley tonight looking for only their fifth victory of the season on their travels.

In contrast, Blackpool have already claimed 11 wins at Bloomfield Road in the Championship.

Critchley is adamant his side approaches games in exactly the same manner, regardless of where the match is taking place.

So when asked why the results are so different, Critchley concedes it’s difficult to work out.

“I don’t know why that is,” he told The Gazette.

“It will be something we do at the end of the season when we review the season with our staff. We’ll look at everything with every department to find ways we can improve.

“That will come under the microscope to see why it happened. Sometimes it can just be one of those things, but we’ll have all the data, stats plus our knowledge and our memories to back that up.

“But at this moment in time I wouldn’t be able to put my finger on that.

“There’s been so many games we’ve been in and we’ve been right there, but you look at games like Cardiff and Hull, we’ve drawn those games when we should have won.

“There’s been that fine line where we’ve not been able to get over on too many occasions away from home unfortunately.”

The Seasiders travel to Oakwell tonight to take on a Barnsley side that have already had their relegation to League One confirmed.

It’s been a steep decline for the Yorkshire outfit, who defied the odds to finish in the Championship play-offs only last season.

But the Tykes are now rock bottom of the table on just 30 points from their 43 games, having only won six games all season.

Despite that, Critchley believes they’re a much better side than their woeful record suggests.

“I saw them quite a few times in January and I kept coming back to the staff saying ‘Barnsley are decent, they’ve got some good players and they play good football, so I think they’ll pick up’. I did say that,” he revealed.

“It was just after that they beat QPR and won a couple of games on the bounce, which didn’t surprise me.

“But I was driving home from a midweek game and I think they were playing Stoke at home and Stoke equalised in the 96th minute or something. They played Fulham the Saturday after that and they equalised late in the game as well.

“If you think they were so close to beating Stoke and Fulham back-to-back and picking up more points, who knows what would have happened and the belief and momentum they would have got.

“That’s why it’s such a fine line in this division. But when I look at their team and their players, they’ve got really good players, they were well coached and they had a really good way about them.

“It’s just for various reasons, which I don’t really know about because I’m not there, it’s just not gone their way this season.

“From me as a coach when I look at their team, I think they’ve got good players and I enjoy watching them play.”