Daniel backs Pool pair to bounce back

Colin Daniel has backed Jimmy Ryan and Curtis Tilt to bounce back when Blackpool travel to Walsall on Saturday.

The Seasiders’ trip to the Banks’s Stadium will be their first league game for a fortnight after international call-ups derailed last Saturday’s scheduled meeting with Blackburn Rovers.

Last time out in the league, Gary Bowyer’s players were beaten 2-1 at Southend United in a game Ryan and Tilt could be forgiven for wanting to forget quickly.

Arguably the club’s most consistent performers this season, both were at the centre of Blackpool’s defeat.

Both of Southend’s goals came as a result of mistakes from Tilt. And Ryan, who had set up Kyle Vassell’s consolation goal, spurned the chance to claim a point when his stoppage-time penalty was kept out by Shrimpers keeper Mark Oxley.

Tilt played 45 minutes in last week’s Checkatrade Trophy win at Accrington Stanley but Saturday provides the first opportunity for both men to banish their blues in the league.

So far this season, Ryan has led by example and sat in front of the back four, allowing his midfield colleagues to get forward.

Tilt, in his first season at Football League level, has formed a promising partnership with Clark Robertson in the centre of Blackpool’s defence.

And Daniel said of the pair: “It might not have been a good day for them but they have kept us in enough games,” Daniel said of Tilt and Ryan.

“Jimmy controls the game and Tilts keeps them out, but both of them have come in and done well this season.

“It’s just one bad day at the office. On another day we would have got a point.”

The loss at Southend was witnessed by 263 travelling supporters who had made the trip to Roots Hall.

While the reasons for Blackpool’s fans staying away have been well documented, Daniel believes those who have watched the club this season have seen reasons for optimism on their return to English football’s third tier.

“I think they can see the promise and that we have improved,” Daniel said of their performances so far in League One.

“We have put in some good performances and, if we can keep them out at one end and put them in at the other end, then we will be all right.”