Blackpool's players can take inspiration from last season's poor start

The Seasiders recovered from a woeful start in League One in 2020/21 after losing six of their opening nine league games.

Critchley’s side would use their early-season setbacks as fuel to propel them to promotion via the third tier play-offs.

It’s only three games into the new campaign but Pool have already made a stuttering start, taking just one point from their opening three games.

Blackpool’s head coach is confident his players will turn things around, even if the step up to the Championship is proving tricky.

“We don’t want to lose games of football and we certainly don’t want to start like we did last season,” Critchley said.

“Because we went through that period, we can use that as a period to draw some strength from that.

“We came through that period last season and we know why we came through it, so we can use that now with the players that were with us last season.

“Because of how we work, how we train, how we set up for every game, we’ve got some new players in the door, and with a shortened pre-season and a bit of disruption – not to go on about it too much, but it takes some time to bed those players in.

“We will become more consistent with how we work and how we play, and our identity will become clearer.

“Touch wood, if we don’t suffer too many injuries, then we’ll have a strong squad.”

Pool slumped to their second straight defeat on Tuesday night, being edged out 1-0 by Coventry City.

Despite the setback, Critchley believes there’s plenty his side can take from their performance, especially in the second half.

“There were lots of positives,” he said.

“We know we have played two tough home games, but I was more pleased with how we played against Coventry and the manner of our performance than we were against Cardiff. I thought we were more like us.

“I’ve watched the game back and our initial start was good, but for a few different reasons, Coventry got a foothold in the game.

“We’ve obviously spoken about that and we’ll work on doing better in those moments, but we still created some good chances and in the second half we were the dominant team.

“There’s a fine line and we have to do better in both penalty boxes, but if we continue to perform like we did in the second half against both Coventry and Cardiff, then we’ll be a match for a lot of the teams in the division this season.”

Coventry’s winning goal in midweek came in controversial fashion, as Viktor Gyokeres bundled home the ball with what appeared to be his hand.

While TV replays showed the ball had actually rebounded in off his face, Critchley was still left unhappy with the officiating and felt his side were hard done by.

“When it initially happened everyone was claiming handball and it looked like it struck the player’s hand,” he said.

“On review, it doesn’t and it comes off his head.

“It’s really unfortunate because Chris Maxwell intercepts the cross and gets a hand on it, and it could go anywhere at that point.

“He pushes it into the player’s head but even then it could go wide or drop anywhere – but it hits him flush in the face and goes in.

“For me, he’s a yard in front of the play and he’s offside and the referee put a minute up, but it’s over the minute – it’s 46 something – and I don’t know where he’s found the extra time from.

“Why he’s gone over that, I don’t know.”

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