Ryan believes only way is up for Blackpool

Don’t miss the latest football news and gossip from leagues in England, Scotland and Europe with footballwire.co.ukPool enjoyed two positive results last week, picking up four points from their games against Wigan Athletic and Peterborough United. It leaves Gary Bowyer’s men 17th in the league table, three points ahead of the bottom four ahead of Saturday’s long trip to face a Portsmouth side buoyed by their midweek win at Fleetwood Town.

Ryan, who has impressed on his return to the side, believes it won’t be long before Blackpool remove themselves from the relegation picture.

He said: “We don’t want to be where we are – we want to be getting up the table, looking forwards not backwards.

“You can see how much it means to the lads to try to get up the table.

“Everyone is pulling in the same direction, trying their best and that’s only going to take us one way.

“Hopefully we can keep doing that, and if we do it won’t be too long until we pull away from the danger zone and are looking up.”

After a superb start to the season, Blackpool’s form nosedived from October onwards. Since then, the Seasiders have failed to pick up a home win in 10 attempts and have won just three of their last 20 games.

Having taken 17 points from their opening eight matches, they have since picked up just 22 from their last 25.

The main aim for Gary Bowyer’s side will be to avoid relegation at any cost.

But Blackpool will be boosted by their recent results and are unbeaten in their last four.

They gave themselves some breathing space with a superb 2-0 win against title favourites Wigan before following it up with a creditable 1-1 draw at home to Peterborough.

Ryan was brought back into the starting line-up for those fixtures following a spell on the substitutes’ bench.

He featured for 70 minutes at the DW Stadium before playing the full 90 at Bloomfield Road on Sunday.

Bowyer revealed his skipper has had to overcome some “niggling injuries” in recent weeks but is now back to full fitness.

Ryan added: “Obviously the gaffer thought I was a bit tired at Wigan, so that’s why he brought me off, but I was glad to get 90 minutes against Peterborough.

“I just want to do well, work hard and try to push the team up the league.”

Kyle Vassell is likely to come back into contention for this weekend’s game after missing the last two through injury.

The striker trained on the morning of the Posh match on Sunday but wasn’t fit enough to be included in the squad.