Michael Appleton demanding even more from his Blackpool side against Bristol City

The Seasiders produced an inspirational display last weekend to fight back from 3-1 down to draw 3-3 against Lancashire rivals Burnley.

Appleton’s men probably should have won the game in the end, but they were forced to settle for a draw which leaves them on seven points after five games.

Despite the comeback at Turf Moor, Appleton believes there’s still plenty more to come from his side.

“We can play miles better with the ball, there’s no doubt about it,” he told The Gazette.

“There’s no part of me that was trying to match what Burnley do and how they do it, because we’re still a little bit away from that in terms of personnel and how we approach it.

“In terms of creating opportunities, being forward thinking, being brave and being aggressive, I thought they showed that in abundance in the second-half.

“I did think it was going to be one of those days where we get punished at the end because of the amount of opportunities we didn’t take in that second-half.”

Blackpool had plenty of joy against Burnley when they pressed high up the pitch and forced Vincent Kompany’s side into mistakes.

Appleton admits his team “smelt blood” when goalkeeper Arijanet Muric continued to have problems playing out from the back.

“To be fair to the lads they picked up on it themselves in the first-half,” he added.

“At half-time, the message was to defend a little bit higher up the pitch because you could feel the anxiety in the stadium every time the ball was passed back to the goalkeeper or into the two centre halves.

“There was a keenness to get the ball forward, so we tried to jump on that and use that to our advantage.”

Appleton has stuck by his trusted 4-3-3 system so far this season but he did change it up a little against Burnley.

With so many midfielders out injured, Pool lined up in a 4-2-3-1 formation with Kenny Dougall and Callum Connolly fulfilling the two deeper roles.

Further up the field, Shayne Lavery was moved over from the left to the right, which freed up Josh Bowler from his defensive responsibilities.

When asked why he made those changes, Appleton said: “Just to deal with what caused us a few problems in the early part of the game.

“Having said that, Lavs did a great job in terms of what we wanted from him. The reason we suffered in that early part of the game was because of a lapse in concentration from our defenders more than the lads in front.

“Lavs did a job for us, he did it manfully. In the earlier part of the game in that transition we didn’t get the ball to Josh because we didn’t do the basics well enough, but the longer the game went on a little bit he found a bit more freedom and caused a few more issues.

“We were going to change to 4-4-2 anyway but once we got the second goal we felt ‘let’s go and try and win this, never mind let’s go and find a third’.”