Stephen Dobbie reveals more details about Blackpool's in-house game

The intention was to host a behind-closed-doors game against another club but, given the stage of the season, the Seasiders were unable to find an opponent.

Instead, the likes of Marvin Ekpiteta, Tom Trybull, Rob Apter and Shayne Lavery all featured in an in-house game which also featured the club’s development squad.

“We had a runout,” Dobbie said. “You get what you get in an in-house game.

“We did try and get a friendly against different teams but we weren’t able to do that because it’s the end of the season and teams are fighting for stuff, so they don’t want injuries.

“But it was good to get Tom, Marvin and Shayne onto a pitch, they got a good hour into them. Rob Apter as well came back from injury.

“It was also important for some of the younger players from the development squad to get a taste of it against these sorts of players, so all in all it was a good exercise.”

There remains precious time to get the four players up to speed with only two games of the season remaining, starting with tomorrow night’s must-win clash against Millwall.

But Dobbie is hopeful they’ll be able to play some part for the Seasiders before the season is up.

“They all came through it fine, no problems at all,” he said. “We’re obviously training this morning and then we’ll see where we’re at.

“We’ve got four who are on fitness tests so we’ll make our decisions later.”