Chief executive Ben Mansford on Neil Critchley's new deal, Stuart McCall's departure, Rob Apter's future and policing

Pool’s head coach recently penned a new four-and-a-half year contract to keep him at Bloomfield Road until 2026.

Speaking to The Gazette, Mansford spoke of his delight at Critchley’s decision to sign the new deal.

He also addressed a number of other topics, including Stuart McCall’s recent departure, Rob Apter’s long-term contract and the latest news on the policing of Blackpool’s home games.

Here’s what he said:

Neil Critchley’s new contract

“The vast majority of Critch’s contract is private and confidential, although we agreed to release the date he’s extended until.

“Me, Simon (Sadler), Brett (Gerrity), Critch, John (Stephenson), we have a real positive working relationship so it’s clearly the right thing for us to do and what was massively refreshing is that Critch felt it was the right thing for him to do as well.

“If there is interest in Critch, if Critch ever felt there was something we’d need to consider, I think the positivity of the relationship we’ve got means we would discuss it.

“For now, I hope that knock on the door doesn’t come any time soon because I’m excited about the prospect of continuing to work with Critch and building the club the best we can with Critch at the helm.”

Stuart McCall’s recent departure

“We came in the morning we were doing the team photo and Stuart is there looking a bit meek and mild and told me he needed a chat.

“It’s a club he’s got affiliation with, it’s someone in Paul Heckingbottom he knows and he was honest and said he wanted to go back to Sheffield United as assistant.

“Sheffield United conducted themselves thoroughly and properly throughout the whole thing and we have to let Stuart get on with that next chapter.

“We’ll work with Critch to work out what’s next for us.”

Are the club looking to hire another assistant with experience (like McCall and Colin Calderwood)?

“As a club we constantly evolve, so Critch will work with us and involve (head of football operations) John Stephenson and the board and we’ll look at what we think is right.

“Sometimes it’s about who is going to be the best fit for the appointment, so touch wood Critch takes a lot of time with us all to make sure we don’t compromise on character, we want people that want to be here and we want people with the right work ethic.

“We want people that hopefully make us all better, so I really hope we can continue to do that with whatever appointment we make next.”

Rob Apter’s new contract

“Rob is a fantastic young man. He’s got an infectious character on the pitch because he’s got this natural ability to go past people and have fans on the edge of their seats.

“I know how well he did in the FA Youth Cup last year and he’s doing ever so well with Scotland, who rate him very highly.

“He’s really embraced the loan move to Bamber Bridge and I suspect there will be interest in Rob from higher leagues.

“Like we saw with others, we’ll use the loan window to continue to develop him.

“I’m pleased one of our brightest young players has committed his long-term future to the club. It’s what we want.”

Latest update on the policing of Blackpool’s home matches

“There’s been good communication between Lancashire Police and the club.

“We had a session with a number of fan representatives a couple of weeks ago where we talked about some of the challenges the police were having and the club were having and our supporters were having.

“The real general consensus was a desire to have matches at Blackpool talked about for the right reasons and to all work together to try and eradicate this incredibly poor behaviour from a really small amount of people.

“The club are working with Lancashire Police to do that.

“We can’t be naive to think the situation is going to resolve itself overnight, so we have to keep working to make sure this is the norm and that we get back to talking about football.

“But credit to Lancashire Police, they were really open and really honest and on the basis of the spirit of that, we’ve got a chance to work with them and the fans to hopefully make sure we eradicate this poor behaviour from a small number of fans.”

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