Cardiff City v Blackpool: Live match updates

Blackpool received welcome news about the extent of the hamstring injury Marvin Ekpiteta suffered against Bournemouth last week.

The defender (above) hasn’t trained all week but scans revealed the setback isn’t as bad as first feared.

Neil Critchley hasn’t even ruled him out of featuring today, although that seems unlikely.

If Ekpiteta doesn’t feature, that means Oliver Casey could be handed a first league start to partner Jordan Thorniley at centre-back.

Elsewhere, it’s likely to be a similar squad to choose from for Critchley than what he had at his disposal against the Cherries last Saturday.

Chris Maxwell (quad), Richard Keogh (calf), Luke Garbutt (knee), James Husband (hamstring), Matty Virtue (ACL), Grant Ward (achilles), Sonny Carey (metatarsal) and Keshi Anderson (hamstring) are all sidelined.

The Seasiders will come up against their former loanee Ryan Wintle, who has made eight appearances for the Bluebirds since being recalled at the start of January.

Blackpool make the long trip down to South Wales looking to get back to winning ways after last week’s cruel defeat to Bournemouth.

Neil Critchley’s side dominated for large swathes against the high-flying Cherries in their last outing, only to concede twice late on to lose 2-1.

It was Blackpool’s first league defeat of 2022 in their sixth game of the New Year.

The result leaves the Seasiders in 15th place in the Championship table, 21 points ahead of the bottom three and eight points adrift of the play-off spots.

This weekend they face an in-form Cardiff side that have won four of their last five games.

Steve Morison’s side, who have otherwise endured a disappointing campaign, claimed an impressive 2-0 win against Coventry City in midweek.

Darren Bond, who last refereed a Blackpool game in 2020 when Blackpool lost 2-0 to Reading in the FA Cup, is the man in charge.

And welcome to today’s live blog.

If you’ve decided against making the trip to the Welsh capital, perhaps as a result of Storm Eunice, please feel free to follow this page for live updates from Blackpool’s game against Cardiff.

You can follow the blog for build-up, team news and live match updates throughout the day.