Birthday boy Mick McCarthy wants to give Blackpool fans something to cheer about against Huddersfield Town

The Seasiders return to Bloomfield Road for the first of huge back-to-back home games against relegation rivals.

Huddersfield Town, who sit inside the bottom three alongside McCarthy’s men, are up first this evening before Rotherham United also make the trip to Lancashire on Saturday.

McCarthy, who celebrates his 64th birthday today, is desperate to give the fans something to cheer about after sticking with his team during Saturday’s 3-0 defeat to Middlesbrough.

“The fans were terrific at Southampton and they were again at Middlesbrough,” he said.

“They didn’t have much to cheer about. We had chances but we didn’t score a goal. We hit the crossbar when it’s 1-0 and it ends up finishing 3-0 and it looks like we’ve had nothing to cheer about.

“But the fans were brilliant and it would be nice to give them something to celebrate on Tuesday night.

“Our home form is going to be vital, it generally is. I’m being the master of stating the obvious but home form is massive to every club.

“Okay, every now and then you might find a team that wins a lot of away games but we’ve got to try and make our place a fortress and try and win some games, especially these next two.”

The Terriers, who Blackpool beat 1-0 in controversial circumstances earlier in the season, sit one place and one point ahead of them in the table.

Mark Fotheringham’s side drew 1-1 with Neil Critchley’s QPR on Saturday to leave them two points adrift of safety.

“If you’ve got a point in your pocket it’s much nicer than having nothing,” McCarthy said.

“They were the team in the ascendancy against QPR, they were the only team that was going to win it.

“They were going for it, they changed their shape a little bit towards the end to make it more attack-minded and sadly for them they only ended up with a point. But it was quite a good game.

“I thought they were taking the game to QPR.”