Neil Critchley on the improvements Blackpool need to make

The Seasiders boasted a watertight defence last season, when Chris Maxwell kept the most clean sheets in League One and Critchley’s men conceded the fewest goals.

But Blackpool have been uncharacteristically open in their first three games back in the Championship, offering up a host of opportunities to their opponents.

While they’ve only conceded four goals, it could have been more but for wayward finishing and some superb Maxwell saves.

While Critchley was always expecting his backline to come under more intense pressure in the Championship, he admits there are improvements to be made.

“We’ve spoken about that,” Pool’s head coach told The Gazette. “We didn’t concede a lot of chances against Bristol City but we did in our two home games (the defeats to Cardiff City and Coventry City).

“A lot of those chances probably come when the game is open in transitional moments, when the ball drops down, they pick it up and are on our back four quite quickly.

“It’s something for us to look at and try to get better at, but we have felt a little bit more open.

“Again, we’re playing against better teams and better players, so I’d expect us to find it harder.

“But it’s definitely something we need to look at and do better with.”

Pool quickly found themselves on the back-foot in both those home games, conceding Tuesday’s winner against Coventry in first-half stoppage time.

Critchley said of the slow starts: “It’s something we need to solve. We have to find a way of getting a better foothold in the game earlier, especially at home.

“We can’t allow teams to come here and dictate the game to us.

“We’ve got to dictate the game to them in terms of how we want to play.

“In the second half, we were the team dictating. They were playing on the break and we had them pinned back in their own half. But we’ve got to try to do that from the start.”

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