Blackpool boss Neil Critchley: We won't be changing our approach just because of opening day defeat

The Seasiders got their league campaign off to a frustrating start last week when they went down to a 1-0 loss against Plymouth Argyle.

That’s despite Critchley’s side dominating for large parts of the game, pinning Plymouth in their own half after Luke Jephcott’s third-minute opener.

While Critchley was as disappointed as any Blackpool fan at their losing start, he remains as confident as ever that his side will enjoy a successful season.

“We need to stick to what we’ve been doing, believe in what we’ve been doing,” Pool’s head coach said.

“It would be easy if you lose a game to rip up what we’ve been doing for the last eight to 10 weeks and just say ‘right, that’s not worked, let’s try something else. Is the system not working? Let’s change it’.

“We have to stick to and believe in what we’re doing and my message to the players after the game was: if we continue to perform to that level and that standard, then I’m confident the results will go in our favour a lot more than they go against us this season.”

Blackpool’s main issue at Home Park last week was their failure to convert their chances, having produced an impressive 19 shots on goal.

Regardless of the result, Critchley admits he and his players would look to improve on all aspects of their game ahead of Saturday’s game against Swindon Town.

“We show the players where we think they can improve,” he added. “That might be how we attack, how we’re going to break down opposition defences, it might be ‘are we taking up the right positions in the penalty box?’, ‘are we looking for the right pass?’

“You evaluate all your performances, you review it and you feed it back to the players and then you try and replicate it on the training ground.

“It becomes a process of work you follow every week so there’s no complacency. We would have done that had we won the game, so win, lose or draw we always look to improve on our performance every single week.

“With that, comes a standard of work the players are used to and the more we continue to do that, the better and stronger we will become.”