Blackpool long-term absentees take another step forward in their recovery from injury

Jordan Gabriel has been out of action since April with a knee injury, while Kyle Joseph has only managed a brief cameo for the Seasiders since his summer move to Bloomfield Road from Swansea City.

Neil Critchley believes the pair have been able to help each other throughout their spells on the sidelines.

"They’ve joined in with a little bit of training this week,” he explained.

"It was just a bit of ball work and warming up with the group, just to integrate them back into the team environment.

"It can be a little bit lonely being on your own with the fitness coaches and sports science teams, just doing endless amounts of running and ball work.

"For them to be in a bit more of a social aspect with the other players is a step forward for them, but there’ll still be some time away yet.

"Having each other during this time means they’ve had someone to push and pull them.

"We’re all competitive animals in this business and when you’ve got someone working alongside you, you want to prove yourself.

"They can give each other moral support and pull each other through a tough period.

"Jordan (Gabriel) has been out for five months so he’s had not pre-season and he’s not even started training with the group yet.

"When he does we’ll start to build his fitness back up.

"It’s the same with Kyle (Joseph) really. He’s had an interrupted pre-season, so when they both come back we’ll look at them on an individual basis, because what’s right for one isn’t right for the other.

"We’ll only start looking at games where we can involve them off the back of a decent amount of training first.”

Ahead of this weekend’s game against Stevenage at Bloomfield Road, Critchley states he’s got no fresh injury concerns.

"Everyone is fine,” he said.

"There’s no issues from Tuesday night, everyone came through with a clean bill of health.

"Other than our other injury issues, it will be a similar squad again.”