'We're worse off': Blackpool’s injury state of play ahead of Championship return against Birmingham City

It was hoped the month-long break would allow the Seasiders the opportunity to get four or five players back from injury.

But while Appleton is opting to keep his cards close to his chest in terms of names, Pool’s head coach has revealed they’ve since suffered new setbacks and are likely to be without six or seven players on Saturday.

“I want to come out and be really positive and say ‘yeah, we’re in a much better place’ but the reality is we’re not,” he said.

“We’ve had a couple of setbacks with injuries, but it’s not all bad news. There are one or two players we’ve not seen for a while that hopefully, with a bit of luck, will get an opportunity over the next couple of weeks.”

When asked if he was able to name the players in question who had suffered a setback, Appleton added: “I’d rather not at this moment in time and make Birmingham’s job a little bit easier.

“I’m sure when you see the squad on Saturday you will get a fair idea of where we are squad-wise.

“If anything we’re slightly worse off than we were before the break, but these things happen. It’s part and parcel of the job and you just have to crack on with it.”

When asked about the seriousness of the new setbacks, Appleton told The Gazette: “They’re not great. There will be six or seven players that will be out until January at least.”

The Seasiders will be especially light at centre-back, with Marvin Ekpiteta suspended for two games and Jordan Thorniley still feeling the effects of his recent concussion.

On the latter, Appleton revealed the centre-back is unlikely to be available until the New Year.

“He’s still following protocol with that and that’s one thing we’re not prepared as a club to rush because players’ careers are at risk if you try and do that,” he explained.

“It’s been brought to everyone’s attention about concussion and the types of concussion you can get. Rightly so now there is a protocol you have to follow.

“You can only work at a certain level and do certain things when you get to certain stages in the protocol, so it’s just a slow process with Jordan at the minute.

“I don’t see him being available until at least January but if it was him, he’d probably want to. But ultimately there are still very minor symptoms that are still there when he does certain things, so he’s not 100 per cent.

“He’s had one in the past, a serious one at Sheffield Wednesday. I think he might have even had two in a very short period of time.

“We had a situation with a player at a previous club that had something similar and it was a slow process, you have to be careful with these things.

“Jordan is in a similar position.”

Elsewhere, the situation remains similar with the longer-term injury concerns Jordan Gabriel, Kevin Stewart and Keshi Anderson.

“They’re on a reasonable schedule, but the best case scenario for those three is January,” he said.