Brett Ormerod: Keeping Josh Bowler amid Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest interest was great business for Blackpool

I know Bournemouth and Forest were in for him, but as I said in my column a couple of weeks ago, unless Blackpool received a stupid offer they were in a position where they didn’t need to sell.For me, there was no reason to sell him unless a club came in with an offer Blackpool deemed was too good to turn down, but that would have taken a lot.

It took Bowler a bit of time to settle at Bloomfield Road. He’s always been good running with the ball and moving the ball at pace, and he can go right and left, which is so difficult for defenders to deal with.

But early on in the season, the one thing people were questioning was his end product because it wasn’t brilliant, but he’s improved on that and he’s getting better each game.

I saw him during the home game against Millwall a couple of weeks ago and he was magnificent.

He obviously scored a great goal and performed well against Fulham last week as well, so he’s getting better all the time and it would have been a real shame had Blackpool lost him in January.

Perhaps the one disappointment from the window was the failure to bring in another central midfielder.

Ryan Wintle went back to Cardiff City, which was a blow. He had a great spell at Blackpool but, sometimes, that’s the problems with these loans.

When they’re not getting in the side, they go away and have a successful spell, then his parent club – who were struggling in the league – want him back.

It’s completely understandable of course, but it’s still disappointing from Blackpool’s point of view.

It gives someone else an opportunity and they do have players in that position who can step up, so I’m sure they’ll be fine.

Elsewhere, the emergence of CJ Hamilton during the last couple of games has been a real plus because he’s had so many injury worries.

He’s still finding his feet in the Championship because he only made a few appearances at the start of the season, when he clearly still had some injury problems and required another operation.

He’s had to be patient since he’s come back. He was one of the top men before he got injured but they’ve since signed Bowler and Keshi Anderson has been doing so well on the left, which stopped him breaking back into the first-team as early as he would have liked.

He’s remained patient and seems to be taking his chance now it’s come his way, which is all you can do.

As for this weekend, you’d like to think it’s a winnable home game against Bristol City but that isn’t how the Championship works.

They caused Preston a lot of problems the other week and they’re one of those teams where you’re not really sure what you’re going to get. It just depends which side turns up on the day.

There aren’t many teams you can look at in this league and think ‘that’s a guaranteed three points’: it doesn’t work like that and it never has.

Blackpool are on 37 points, which is a great tally to have given we’re only at the start of February.

You look at Peterborough, who came up with them last season. It’s been a struggle for them because it’s a big jump and it takes players time to adjust.

You don’t get the time on the ball you do in League One and the quality is better, so it can take time.

It’s a young squad Blackpool have and they were learning, but they’ve learned to adapt and it’s been a great season so far.

They’ve had their ups and downs, but that was always going to be the case because of the league they’re in.

They had their first real wobble over December but they seem to have come through that and they look like they want to kick on now.

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