Blackpool need to be 'aggressive' in the transfer market to help ease injury woes

The Seasiders were without nine first-team players on Saturday as they opened the season with a hard-earned 1-0 win against Reading.

Chris Maxwell (groin), Luke Garbutt (hamstring) and Keshi Anderson (knee) became the latest trio to join Doug Tharme, Richard Keogh, Jordan Gabriel, James Husband, Kevin Stewart and Jake Beesley on the sidelines.

“They’re all injured,” Appleton said.

“Maxi did his groin towards the end of the Fylde game coming for one of the crosses and Keshi was in the team on Friday up until 10 minutes before the end of training when we were doing a bit of set-play work.

“But he’s done his MCL so he’s going to be out for a couple of months.

“I looked at the injury board and I felt a little bit sick, because there’s nine senior players on that board at the minute. That just goes to show the effort the players put in on Saturday to get the win.

“But we’ll try to be active in the market. We’ve been pretty aggressive so far but we have to be on the front foot because there’s some big, big sides in this division and we know we can’t compete with a lot of them.

“But I think we can be smart and I think we have been smart so far, so I think we can get some players to come to the club.”

Keogh was rated as 50-50 for Saturday’s curtain raiser but Appleton opted not to take a risk with the 35-year-old, leaving him out of the squad.

“We’re hoping he’s going to be available for Stoke next week,” Pool’s head coach said.

“Having said that I thought the two centre halves (Marvin Ekpiteta and Williams) were outstanding.

“I think Keesy will be pushing hard to make himself available for next week.”

The Seasiders have already brought in four new recruits this summer in Rhys Williams, Dom Thompson, Lewis Fiorini and Theo Corbeanu.

But with a month remaining of the transfer window, there’s still plenty of work to do for Appleton’s men.