Brett Ormerod column: Blackpool are still among those sides chasing the play-offs

You look at the league table and see they’re 14th, which doesn’t sound that exciting – but the table doesn’t give a true reflection at the minute because a lot of teams, including Blackpool, have so many games in hand.

There’s a few teams currently sitting mid-table who will be aiming to push on and reduce that gap to the top six. A couple of wins on the bounce and you’ll soon fly up the league, so it’s still all to play for. It’s certainly game on time.

It was really important for Blackpool to get that win over Rochdale in midweek.

The Seasiders were really good in the first half and were well in control of proceedings but it was a different story in the second half, especially after Marvin Ekpiteta went off.

You can’t always do it for 90 minutes though, things happen and you’ve got to find different ways of winning games.

Momentum can often swing but Blackpool dug in and got the three points, which is all that mattered.

It’s Portsmouth away this weekend, which is a tough game, but if Blackpool play the way they can, on their day they can beat anyone in this league as they’ve already shown. It’s just that consistency that has been the issue.

Pompey lost to Bristol Rovers in midweek. I watched Bristol Rovers get absolutely battered by Accrington Stanley recently and they were really, really poor – but that just goes to show how results can swing in this league.

Hopefully Blackpool can go down there, give a good account and come away with three points.

It feels a bit weird that we’re nearly in March, yet Blackpool still have 21 games left to play.

That’s a lot of football, so I think having a big squad is going to play a massive part in teams either staying the course or falling away.

Ekpiteta got injured on Tuesday, which is a blow, but I don’t think Blackpool will be the only team suffering injuries between now and the end of the season with games coming thick and fast.

What works in Blackpool’s favour is they have quite a versatile squad, so they have players who can fill in as and when needed.

Ekpiteta is the latest Blackpool player to pull his hamstring with Daniel Gretarsson, Keshi Anderson and CJ Hamilton also having issues.

When you’re training at that level day in, day out, these things can happen. Your muscles are prone to pulling sometimes.

You can do all the preparation in the world and get the sports science right, and sometimes if you feel something before you pull it, you can come off – but you can’t control it.

Hamstring injuries come in grades. You can have a slight tear which can take a couple of weeks to return from or you can have a really big tear that can take longer than a broken leg. They can be that serious.

It just depends on what grade tear Ekpiteta has got but hopefully it’s not that bad.

It was especially important for Blackpool to beat Rochdale on Tuesday night and get back to winning ways after losing at Ipswich.

It was a disappointing result at Portman Road and the performance was well below par as well, so they will have been itching to put that right.

When you have a bad performance like that you want to get straight back into it, which they thought they would have the chance to do with the Burton game the following Tuesday, only for that to be postponed.

For two games to be cancelled, with the Peterborough game being called off as well, will have been majorly frustrating for Neil Critchley.

The Burton game being called off barely five minutes before kick-off was crazy.

The only thing similar to that I can remember from my career was when Blackpool played Norwich in the cup. That was called off just as we were getting changed and getting ready for the warm-up an hour before kick-off.

On this occasion, Blackpool and Burton had done their warm-ups and were changed and ready to line up in the tunnel.

That’s really frustrating. Once you’re in that position you want to get the game played, it’s as simple as that.

Once you’re changed, you’ve done your mental routine, you know you’ve worked hard all week and you just want to get out and play.

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