Was Blackpool's defeat to Blackburn Rovers a reality check? Or just an inevitable consequence of injury problems?

It’s always ill-advised to make judgements off the back of one poor display, especially when the recent performances have been so encouraging.

But at the same time, some of the problems that came to the fore in this full-blooded Lancashire derby weren’t entirely unexpected.

Kenny Dougall and Callum Connolly are two very reliable defensively-minded midfielders. They’re more than capable of doing a job when paired with a more creative force or two other bodies in the centre of the park.

But what they’re not is a midfield duo that’s going to strike fear into Championship opposition. As a result, the Seasiders lacked guile and invention and at times, were shown up by Blackburn’s young debutant Adam Wharton.

The lack of options in central midfield is certainly a problem. Of the seven first-team players currently unavailable to Michael Appleton, five of them are capable of playing in that area of the pitch. Just having one of them back would be a huge bonus.

It leaves Blackpool depressingly short on options. Throughout Tuesday night’s game it became abundantly clear that two up top wasn’t working. Gary Madine couldn’t get in the game and the hosts were overrun in midfield.

But what alternative did Appleton have? Matty Virtue was available to come off the bench but he’s being primed for a deadline day departure. Perhaps Theo Corbeanu could have fulfilled a number 10 role to provide a much-needed extra man?

But in truth, there’s not a great deal of options at Appleton’s disposal at this moment in time. He said so himself.

“I kept looking around thinking ‘can I improve us in certain areas with what we needed?’ and I didn’t really see that,” he said after the game.

“That’s not disrespectful, you guys know as well as me. It’s one where it would be nice to have that.

“I could have looked even further back and seen all the lads that are injured, we might have had one or two options to call upon but it’s not to be.”

While the current situation persists, Blackpool are going to have nights like this. If that’s a wake-up call, perhaps it’s one we all needed to see.

And yet, the Seasiders actually started this game like a house on fire and Blackburn’s winning goal, which came as early as the 16th minute, came with their first chance of the game.

Blackpool were doing what they do best when they line up in a 4-4-2, playing on the front foot and putting their opponents under pressure with their high press.

Rovers couldn’t deal with it and looked really uneasy playing out from the back. It seemed only a matter of time until Blackpool made the breakthrough.

But alas, Blackpool’s midfield went missing and one simple ball down the middle of the pitch was coolly dispatched by dangerman Ben Brereton Diaz, who finished the chance as clinically as you’d expect from a striker with a £15m price tag.

From that point onwards, Appleton’s men never really recovered. The men in tangerine huffed and puffed for the remainder of the half but never really threatened the Blackburn goal. The second-half, by comparison, was largely one-way traffic.

If it wasn’t for Dan Grimshaw, Blackburn would have won this by three or four. Jon Dahl Tomasson’s side cut through Blackpool alarmingly easily on a number of occasions but they weren’t able to beat Grimshaw for a second time, despite their best efforts.

The longer Blackpool clung on, the more you got the feeling they might get one final chance to salvage a point they would have scarcely deserved.

They ended up creating two, but unfortunately both went to waste, with an out of sorts Kenny Dougall and Rhys Williams both failing to hit the target with late headers.

As ever, a frustrated Appleton provided a brutally honest assessment of his side’s display after the final whistle, confirming what we already knew.

“The game sums us up as a group and as a unit,” he said.

“There was plenty of endeavour, honesty, effort and energy, that type of stuff, but we just lacked quality in that final third in every department in terms of the final pass, the cross, the shot, it wasn’t quite there for us.

“But that’s going to happen and I almost have to accept that because we are who we are, we will have good days and bad days and this was more a frustrating one.”

Grimshaw and Jerry Yates aside, this was a tough night at the office for Appleton’s players. Very few emerged with credit.

But at the same time, it’s difficult to be too hard on them. They are what they are. We know this squad is lacking in quality, it’s been a regular theme for the past year or so. Even Neil Critchley was saying it back in February and March.

Whether that much-needed injection of quality arrives in the final hours of the transfer window, we’ll have to wait and see. But there’s also a good chance the club ends up in a worse position than it started on deadline day given the continued speculation surrounding Josh Bowler.

The winger didn’t have his finest game on Tuesday but to Blackburn’s credit, they marshalled him well and limited any sort of space for him to work in.

Once they realised Blackpool lacked a creative spark elsewhere on the pitch, it made life very difficult for Appleton’s side. That surely has to be a concern.