George Honeyman’s Blackpool debut was cut short through injury after 45 minutes.

Blackpool new boy George Honeyman could be set for a spell on the sidelines after suffering an ankle injury on his Bloomfield Road debut.

The midfielder had opened the scoring for the Seasiders six minutes into their League One opener against Stevenage, before being forced off at half time - with the game ultimately ending in a 3-2 defeat for Steve Bruce’s side.

Honeyman arrived on the Fylde Coast in June, having turned down a new deal with Millwall after featuring 40 times for the Lions in the Championship last season.

The Sunderland youth product could be a key figure for Blackpool in the centre of the park, with his last taste of the third tier ending in promotion with Hull City.

Heading into Saturday’s meeting with Boro, the Seasiders already had Danny Imray, James Husband, CJ Hamilton, Albie Morgan and Tom Bloxham on the sidelines, with Honeyman now set to be among the absentees as well.

“He had to go off with a nasty looking ankle injury, so that’s a bit of a frustration and seems to be part of the course for us at the moment,” Bruce said.

“He’s in a medical boot - it didn’t look very good.

“We are a bit threadbare at the moment, and we’ve got people playing out of position, but it’s needs must at the moment. We’re unfortunate that we’ve got five or six missing that could make a claim to be in the team. That’s where we’re at, and it’s been a difficult week because of who we have lost.

“We’ve got one or two coming back, so let’s see if we can stay injury free for the next week or two.

“(Tom Bloxham) will be training this week, and CJ (Hamilton) has made good recovery with his shoulder so I’d expect him by the end of the week.

“We’ve got one or two arriving through the door and one or two coming back who’ll make us a little bit stronger.”

No concerns for Lyons

Andy Lyons was also taken off at half time, with new signing Emil Hansson coming on in his place.

The game marked the fullback’s first start in 18 months following a lengthy spell on the sidelines recovering from an ACL injury.

“I just made a change, I thought we had to bring Emil on and that we needed a bit of craft,” he added.

“I wanted to go back to playing two wide players. With Emil only coming in on Friday, I thought it was a risk to have him in from the start, but I wanted to introduce him as quickly as I could at half time.”

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