Blackpool v Peterborough United: Team news, predicted line-up and pre-match quotes from Neil Critchley

The Seasiders head into the game on the back of a seven-game winless run, having only scored twice during that spell.

Their latest setback, the dire 1-0 defeat to Derby County, leaves Neil Critchley’s side in 17th, eight points adrift of Posh in the bottom three.

Darren Ferguson’s side got back to winning ways last weekend with a vital 2-1 victory against Millwall, having previously endured a seven-game run without a win of their own.

Posh have the worst away record in the league though, losing 10 of the 11 games on their travels and conceding 30 times in the process.

David Webb, who officiated Blackpool’s 2-1 win against Middlesbrough in September, will take charge of this weekend’s game.

Team news

Chris Maxwell is facing another spell on the sidelines after suffering a recurrence of the quad injury he sustained earlier in the season.

The 31-year-old suffered the fresh setback during last weekend’s 1-0 defeat to Derby County.

Maxwell required medical treatment on the field but opted to play on as three substitutes had already been made.

It was the goalkeeper’s second appearance since returning from a torn quadricep, an injury that kept him out for two months.

Neil Critchley hopes the fresh setback won’t be as serious as the initial injury, but conceded the club captain is likely to miss the upcoming festive schedule.

Elsewhere, there’s better news regarding Reece James who could feature today despite being withdrawn at half-time last weekend with a hamstring injury. Critchley confirmed the setback wasn’t as serious as first feared.

Oliver Casey (ankle), Luke Garbutt (knee) and Gary Madine (groin) have all trained this week, but Kevin Stewart (ankle) has yet to join in.

Matty Virtue (ACL) and Grant Ward (achilles) remain long-term absentees.

Neil Critchley’s pre-match comments

“Peterborough had a fantastic season last season.

“They’ve got very good players and they’ve recruited some good players from the division we were in last season. They’ve got a good manager as well.

“They will have similar aspirations to us this season, they had a good result last weekend and I watched them play against Nottingham Forest away from home the week before that and they could quite easily have got something out of that game as well, because they played really well.

“But we’re at home, where we’ve not done as well as we’ve wanted to do recently.

“It’s the festive period and we hope our supporters come out in their numbers. We want to put on an entertaining game for them where they can celebrate some goals and watch some goalmouth action.

“We had that against Luton, we just didn’t score, so we know we’ve got to be more clinical in both penalty boxes.”

Opposition view

“The difference against Millwall last Saturday is that we managed to do the hardest thing and get the goals,” Peterborough boss Darren Ferguson said.

“I was delighted with the performance and we thoroughly deserved the win. We got a little bit of a break with the own goal, but we were overdue one, there’s no doubt about that.

“The thing about the division is if you can go on a run of two or three wins on the bounce, it makes a huge difference and that’s what we’ve got to try and do.

“All games are difficult in this league but if we manage to go to Blackpool and get a win, then hopefully that will continue filling us with confidence going into the Boxing Day fixture against Reading. But we’re only looking at it one day at a time.

“The most important message from me to the players is if we get to the level of performance that we did on Saturday, then I think we will win games.

“Any win we get in this division, we have to perform at a very high level and when we have won games, we’ve done that. But we have to do it on a more consistent basis.

“The key to us now is getting consistency in our performances because we’re seeing now if we drop below that, we’re getting beat and that’s just the way the league is unfortunately.”

Pool’s predicted line-up (442): Grimshaw, Gabriel, Ekpiteta, Keogh, Husband, Dougall, Wintle, Hamilton, Anderson, Lavery, Yates

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