Blackpool CEO Ben Mansford reflects on Michael Appleton's tenure at Bloomfield Road and the backlash to his appointment

The 47-year-old joined the Seasiders during the summer following Neil Critchley’s departure, but was sacked back in January and replaced by Mick McCarthy.

In an interview with BBC Radio Lancashire, Mansford explained the thinking behind the decision to bring Appleton back to Bloomfield Road.

He said: “Simon (Sadler) felt it was right to say it and we as a board felt it was right to say it, it was time to front up to that appointment not going the way we wanted.

“Simon said it, we did not expect the push back and the level of positivity we had in staying up and those two-and-a-bit years with Neil to then go quite noticeably the other way under Michael’s appointment.

“You look at the start of Michael’s tenure, Sheffield United away, Burnley, the Coventry game, you could see some of what we were trying to achieve but sadly it’s ultimately a results business and it didn’t work.

“The supporters are a huge part of this club. When we’ve been successful, whether it’s this year, last year or any part of my time at the club when we were back in after Covid they (the fans) make a difference.

“If we had known the reaction and the atmosphere was going to change in the manner it did and so quickly, we might have made a different appointment.

“I do also wonder if Michael was prepared for it as well. I can’t speak for him but he probably hoped trying to organise the team differently and playing a slightly different style of football compared to Neil meant he was probably hopeful he could combat that.

“He tried his best early on with visits to supporters’ clubs and stuff to do that, so it was a disappointment.

“Hindsight is a great thing, but had we known the level of negativity and disappointment towards his appointment we probably would have done something different.

“We had a real good breadth (of candidates), but we had some key criteria. We wanted somebody that had the strength of character to come in, because it’s different when you come in after a period of success.

“That was quite a tight group and a tight staff and they had been together for quite a while, so Michael had the strength of character.

“He wanted to try and play with three in midfield and concentrate more on in possession than out of possession.

“The Championship is brutal, it’s relentless.

“The finances involved - there are teams with 100 per cent wage to turnover, but Michael had the strength of character but he also had a track record of coaching and developing players and he also had a track record of interacting with big Premier League clubs for loans.

“When Neil left and the time he left, it didn’t help with recruitment. That meant some of the better loans and perhaps some of those out-of-contract that we had previously secured with the likes of Dan Grimshaw and Shayne Lavery the summer before, it was difficult to do that without a head coach.

“We felt the better value was going to be in the loan market and Michael, as we know, had a track record with the likes of Brennan Johnson and Morgan Rogers at Lincoln on that day at Wembley.

“By the time Neil left, one or two others that would have been more obvious targets had taken jobs in the Championship. It might have been nice to speak to a Rob Edwards and one or two others.

“People within football were surprised at Neil’s decision to go from a number one to a number two.

“Despite Neil telling us privately it was all about the opportunity to go and work with Steven Gerrard and what those opportunities could be for him, obviously without him coming out at the time and doing any media…we all know a vacuum is created, so there was probably an element of one or two who the fans would hope we would talk to and we might have liked to speak to might have been spooked by the timing of Neil’s decision.

“That’s my take on it.”