What pleased Michael Appleton most about Blackpool’s draw against Sunderland

The Seasiders stopped the rot of three straight defeats with a hard-earned and battling draw at the Stadium of Light this evening.

The last of those losses came against Norwich at the weekend where Appleton’s side were unfortunate not to claim a point against the league’s promotion favourites.

But after a poor first-half against Sunderland, Blackpool showed good character in the second period to almost snatch all three points.

“In the first-half we were a little bit tentative and showed them a bit too much respect,” Appleton said.

“I don’t know if that was down to belief, but I’d like to think we as a group came together at half-time and recognised what was needed.

“In the second-half, I thought we were outstanding. I felt at one point we were like the home team and we were waiting for the net to bulge, there were that many opportunities. The only problem is they were falling for defenders or midfield players who aren’t used to scoring goals.

“But the pleasing thing is we’ve played Norwich on Saturday, created as many chances as we did, play as well as we did and pass the ball as well as we did and then back it up in the space of three days and be more than a match for Sunderland.”

In truth, tonight’s affair in the North East was a game lacking in quality, where both sides looked poor in front of goal.

But it was a physical, combative game throughout and the Seasiders matched Tony Mowbray’s men.

“It was difficult because we were put under a bit of pressure,” Appleton added.

“Saying that, a lot of the stuff in the first-half was in front of us. The two boys Pritchard and Embleton in that number 10 role caused us a few issues which I felt we dealt with at half-time.

“Clearly the two wide boys are a massive part of their game but we were almost happy for them to have the ball in the wide areas and try and show them down the line rather than show them inside, but there were a couple of occasions where we lost our concentration.

“From a physical output, it was difficult. But the reality is at this level if you want to win games of football you have to do both sides of the game, you have to see things out, you have to stay with runners and be disciplined.

“That was the message at half-time and we upped the ante, we pressed a little bit higher, we got a bit more aggressive and we created a lot more opportunities ourselves.”