The Brett Ormerod column: Blackpool look good but that increases pressure

Neil Critchley has got a good squad at his disposal and he seems to have plenty of options in most positions. Hopefully it’s exciting times.

They obviously want to finish as high as they can, which means promotion. There’s no big-headiness or shame in saying that.

It’s well documented they’ve been one of the division’s biggest spenders, so with that comes added pressure. Blackpool will inevitably be among the favourites but that’s a tag they’ll just have to deal with.

There seems to be plenty of strength in depth in the squad. I like Keshi Anderson in particular – he’s impressed me in the games I’ve seen so far.

There’s CJ Hamilton, who scored that fantastic goal against Liverpool and will cause all sorts of problems with his pace this season. He’s an exciting player I’m really looking forward to watching.

The manager will hopefully keep the squad competitive and make sure all the players are pushing each other along.

Plymouth Argyle is not an easy start at all, especially away from home. Ryan Lowe has done a great job there.

They’ve got some good, young players, so it will be a really tough opening test.

It’s never an easy place to go at the best of times. I’ve been there down the years with different teams and I’ve never had an easy game we’ve won comfortably.

There will be plenty of difficult tests this season, though. It will be interesting to see what Critchley’s first XI is because he’s certainly got a lot of players to choose from and will have a selection headache.

I was at Bloomfield Road on Tuesday for the game against Barrow in the EFL Trophy . I was doing commentary for the radio and I thought it was a very good game. Blackpool played some really good football and they appear to have some good new players.

I thought Barrow acquitted themselves well. They were very well organised defensively, threw bodies at everything and put in a real gallant performance.

Apart from the final third, where that little bit of quality was missing, I thought Blackpool played really well. They created plenty of chances, especially in the first half, but you have to give a lot of credit to Barrow for defending resiliently.

They proved they were strong defensively at the weekend when they kept a clean sheet against Derby County, so Neil Critchley won’t have been surprised by that. There was some good defending and some poor finishing as well, but it wasn’t your typical 0-0 and I enjoyed the game.

I thought it had a good pace to it, both sides tried to play football when they could and both had good chances. It was just that final touch Blackpool needed to top off a really good performance.

Gary Madine did well up front. He looked sharp and got hold of the ball. The new lads Dan Kemp and Bez Lubala were busy.

I like Ethan Robson, in particular. The way he got forward from midfield was really impressive, as was MJ Williams sitting in front of the back four. He was good on the ball and always provided an outlet.

The full-backs played really well but the centre-backs got caught square once or twice, which led to a couple of chances for Barrow. They could have been made to pay for that.

I was at the Stoke City game as well and thought Blackpool were by far the better team on the day, especially in the first half. The second half was a bit more even.

I just felt Blackpool were the team getting it the ball down, passing it and looking to create things, while Stoke were very direct and went long. I thought Blackpool were very unlucky to go out on penalties.