Ollie Turton looking forward to locking horns with former teammate as Blackpool take on Accrington Stanley

The 31-year-old made the permanent switch from Bloomfield Road in October, bringing an end to his two-year spell with the Seasiders.

During that time Nottingham and Turton became close friends and they still keep in contact.

Turton said: “It will be nice for me to see Michael Nottingham again. I’m really close to him.

“We speak regularly but it’s never about football. We talk about how we’re both doing but when it comes to tactical stuff we wouldn’t do that to each other.

“I’d imagine Notts knows a lot about us anyway, so he probably doesn’t even need to ask questions.

“We’re both too nice to each other to be sharing any banter but there might be a couple of text messages before the game.

“We’re mainly focused on trying to win the game. It will be good to see him but hopefully we can get the win and he doesn’t.”

Nottingham began the season as Blackpool’s first-choice centre-back alongside Marvin Ekpiteta, starting the opening three league games.

Having made five appearances this season, the defender was allowed to move on after Pool brought in Dan Ballard on loan from Arsenal and Daniel Gretarsson from Norwegian side Aalesund.

Nottingham has since made 12 appearances for Stanley, scoring from 20 yards in last weekend’s surprise 4-3 defeat to Wigan Athletic.

Turton joked: “I saw his goal and rang him up straight after. I said, ‘I didn’t know you had that in the locker!’

“I was really happy for him but I was surprised just to see him on the edge of the box. But it was a great goal from him, so I was chuffed to bits.”

Blackpool head into today’s game on the back of a superb 3-2 win over league leaders Hull City on Tuesday.

Having been pegged back in the 89th minute, Neil Critchley’s side won it in the third minute of stoppage time thanks to CJ Hamilton.

“A last-minute winner –you can’t beat it,” Turton said.

“We wish we had seen it out at 2-1 and weren’t in that position in the first place.

“It was disappointing to concede the equaliser. But it just shows what a group of lads we’ve got to be able to carry on and get the winning goal. That just shows our character.

“We want to beat the big teams. We see ourselves as being up there and have a successful season, so these games are really important.

“At the end of the season, that might be a vital three points we’ve got and not two points lost.

“The way we are now as a team, all we want to do is win. That’s a collective from the staff to the players. All we want to do is win games and that showed on Tuesday.”

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