Matty Virtue out to impress Blackpool's new head coach Neil Critchley despite previous Liverpool links

The 22-year-old was coached by Critchley during his time at Liverpool, where the midfielder came through the ranks before making the permanent move to Bloomfield Road in January 2019.

With the pair being reunited on the Fylde coast, that’s led to some suggesting Virtue could be a key player under Critchley - but the midfielder says that might not necessarily be the case.

“His influence on me has been massive,” Virtue said.

“I first met him when I was 16. When I came in he was my youth-team coach and then he became Under-23 manager after that.

“He’s a great coach and he’s helped me get better as a player, which is one of his main strengths.

“Every player wants to get better and we want to test ourselves and play at the highest level possible for Blackpool.

“If he is going to help us get better as players, then that’s exactly what we want.”

Virtue added: “He let me know when he was coming in, but apart from that it’s been business as usual. He’s probably not seen me play for a year and a half.

“I’ve got to impress him just like everyone else and I’ve got to stake my place on the teamsheet, so in that regard it’s just same old really.

“I’m not just going to assume I’m going to play just because he was my Under-23 coach because he might have other ideas.

“I’ve got to prove to him that I’m a worthwhile name on the teamsheet.”

Virtue admits he’s been fielding questions left, right and centre from his teammates in the last couple of days.

“On Wednesday I got loads of questions: ‘what’s he like? Will he run the lads?’ All questions like that,” Virtue added.

“The lads are all really keen to know what he’s like and I hope they like the answers they got.

“From the two days in training we’ve had with him I think the lads have been really impressed, especially with the level of detail he’s gone into to setup as a team and as individuals - it’s more detail than we’ve had in a long, long time.

“The lads really appreciated that.”