Sunderland draw gives Blackpool a foundation to build from ahead of tough Watford challenge

The Seasiders take on Slaven Bilic’s at Bloomfield Road looking to claim a first win in five.

Appleton’s side did at least end their run of three successive defeats at the Stadium of Light on Tuesday, although Pool’s head coach insists he was never too concerned about that losing streak.

“I’ve heard the word ‘rot’ a couple of times now and I’m not sure where it’s come from,” he said.

"Okay, we’ve lost three games of football but I think there will be a lot of teams that do that this season. It might happen again to us, although I hope it doesn’t happen too soon.

“But listen, if you can back up performances you earn and get a little bit of lady luck at times, but our performance at Sunderland deserved a minimum of a point.

“Because of the way I am, I think we deserved three, because we made them work harder than they made us work.

“But we will take the point, we will move on. We’ve got another tough game on Saturday and we’ve got to be at it because we’re coming up against a side with a new manager who will have a lot of energy at their place at the minute.”

Blackpool were by far the better side during the second-half against the Black Cats, although they had been fortunate to remain on level terms at the interval.

Their slow start came as a surprise to many given the men in tangerine had previously come flying out of the blocks.

“I was probably as surprised by you because when we have been on the front foot early on in games we’ve really looked dangerous,” Appleton added.

“You have to give Sunderland a bit of credit for starting quickly. They obviously had the frustration of the 0-0 on Saturday against Preston and they started better than us.

“We had to find a way to get into the game. We had a couple of moments where we were sloppy on the turnover, we gave the ball away on the first pass, so I was desperate to get them in at half-time and have a chat with them.

“I was glad we were able to keep a clean sheet in that first-half because I felt we could have an effect in the game, we just needed to calm down a little bit and use the adrenaline and energy we had in our system to greater effect.”

Appleton added: “They’re not the biggest side, especially without the two strikers in the side, so we knew we could threaten from set-pieces, which we did.

“I think one of the areas that keeps happening is that little quarter-box where we keep getting in but keep hitting the first man or putting the ball into the keeper’s hands. I don’t know how many times it happened, but you’re just waiting for someone to tap it in.

“We will continue to try and improve, we will continue to replicate those situations so hopefully we can get better.

“Maybe it’s a bit of lady luck of going in off someone’s backside to change the way things are.”