Jay Spearing says Blackpool have gone back to basics to try and overturn recent dip in form

Last weekend’s drubbing at the hands of Burton Albion means Pool have now won just one of their last eight games in League One.

It coincides with a persistence with the diamond formation, initially brought in to good success during the 0-0 draw at Charlton Athletic.

But since then it’s proved ineffective, with the Seasiders winning just one of their next six games.

Spearing and co will be looking to get back to winning ways at Valley Parade this weekend, where the Seasiders will take on bottom-of-the-table Bradford City.

The midfielder is now hoping Pool returning to their core values of what has made them so successful this season can only help them moving forwards.

“In training this week we’ve gone back to basics because we felt we went away from what we’re about,” Spearing said.

“But now we’re making sure we go back to what we’re about and hopefully that will show on Saturday.

“I believe if we get back to who we are then we can cause Bradford a lot of problems.

“I think the problems in recent weeks have been all-round, our formation on the pitch, the way we play, what we do, what we want to show - we just need to get back to what we’ve done well for three-quarters of the season.

“I think for two or three weeks we went away from that, trying to concentrate on other teams rather than ourselves and that’s not what we've done all year.

“We’ve learned from the mistakes and hopefully we’re over that sticky patch.”

On last weekend’s 3-0 defeat at Burton, Spearing added: “It was a massive disappointment, it was a shock.

“I think we played into their hands quite a bit, we let them dictate the game which I wasn’t very happy about.

“I don’t think we were on it as much as we should have been.

“We did have the disappointment of losing Mark Howard and we wish him all the best with that.

“But we didn’t show what we’re about and what we’ve done all season. It’s something we were disappointed and angry about at the end of the game.

“You could say physically and mentally we weren’t ready for that game for whatever reason that was.

“We just didn’t adapt to the way they were coming at us for whatever reason people weren’t at the races that day.

“But we had a meeting on Monday and we all put out our feelings of what the reasons were for it and we were all happy with what we all agreed.

“We’re all grown men, we have to take it on the chin and crack on and look forward to Saturday’s game.

“Training has been a lot better to be fair. I’m not going to blame having five games in two weeks, but that probably did creep into some of the legs of the lads who have been playing regularly.

“This week we’ve been able to refresh and put a lot of hard work onto the pitch on training ground with Tony Grant.

“We feel we’re getting back to the way we should be and we’ve enjoyed it.

“But it’s another game of football we’ve got to forget about now and we’ve got to crack on to Saturday and start afresh.

“We’ve had a good week of training and we’re ready for Saturday.”