'It's not easy:' Blackpool boss explains tough team selection decision against Stockport County

The centre back started last week’s 2-1 defeat away to Crawley Town, but lost his place to Elkan Baggott for the Hatters’ visit to Bloomfield Road, after the Ipswich Town loanee impressed in the midweek 4-0 victory over Burton Albion in the EFL Cup.

Despite suffering a 3-0 loss to Stockport on Saturday afternoon, the Indonesian international was one of the Seasiders’ best players for long periods.

After breaking into the first-team last year, Casey was a standout figure in the centre of Blackpool’s back three, with Critchley appreciating the disappointment the 23-year-old would’ve felt.

“It’s not easy,” he said. 

“I felt Elkan (Baggott) was the one better equipped to deal with Kyle Wootton in the middle of the pitch with his physical presence, and he did that job very well. 

“Maybe he tired a little bit in the second half, but that’s because he’s not played many minutes at that intensity during pre-season. 

“Olly (Casey) left of the back three, right of the back three, but Penno (Matthew Pennington) scored two on Tuesday night and Hubby (James Husband) is your captain, so it’s not easy. 

“Olly will play a lot of games this season, but I know he’ll be disappointed today.”

Meanwhile, both Ollie Norburn and Jake Beesley were dropped from the squad completely for the Stockport game, as Critchley made a number of bold calls.

“I spoke to both of them about the position and where we are at, there’s no issues, they’re fit, they just weren’t included,” he admitted. 

“It was a difficult team to pick. When you look at the first half, I wasn’t looking at the team thinking we’d picked the wrong one. Hindsight is always a wonderful thing, and if you lose it’s easy to think it wasn’t the right thing to do.

“We didn’t lose the game because of team selection, we lost it because of the really poor goal we conceded and the mistake we made for the second.”