What we learned from Blackpool's final pre-season outing against AFC Fylde

It’s hard to take too much from friendlies as it is given the interruption caused by both sides making wholesale changes, which inevitably halts the flow of a game.

But with the Seasiders using this runout as an opportunity to hand minutes to some of their fringe players, it’s difficult to take too many takeaways from Blackpool’s comfortable 2-0 win against neighbours AFC Fylde.

For a start, Marvin Ekpiteta was the only player to start that is likely to feature against Reading on Saturday and that’s because he needed some minutes after missing the Everton friendly at the weekend through illness.

Elsewhere, there were a group of players that had one final opportunity to stake a claim to Michael Appleton and one or two of them managed to do that, but in the main I don’t see this game changing too much when it comes to the head coach’s early plans for his starting XI on the opening day.

The undoubted star of the show was 19-year-old Rob Apter once again, playing out of position at left-back.

The attacking-midfielder has been Blackpool’s standout performer in pre-season and he’s rightfully thrown his name into the hat for a starting role for the first league game.

On the other side of defence, Jack Moore – another product of the club’s academy – performed well again, even if some of his crossing was a little iffy on the night.

A little further up the field, CJ Hamilton was much improved in his best outing of pre-season on the right while Beryly Lubala confirmed his status as the club’s leading goalscorer this summer with his third. A lovely goal it was too, slamming home emphatically from Hamilton’s cutback.

After a stuttering start to the game, Shayne Lavery and Jerry Yates lined up really well and showed signs of a blossoming relationship, spearheading the 4-4-2 system.

The fact Appleton opted to line-up in this formation suggests this was nothing more than just a runout to help improve the fitness because 4-3-3 will be the way to go this season, so it was just a case of getting his fringe players into a system where the majority of them could play in their favoured positions.

There was also a trialist named among the six substitutes, but he didn’t get on and in any case, it’s understood he’s one for the development squad rather than the first-team.

Fylde actually started the game pretty brightly and forced Chris Maxwell into a couple of early stops, as the Seasiders took a while to get going.

But they soon found their stride and dominated the remainder of the game. It was one-way traffic in the second-half where the superior quality of Appleton’s Championship side was there for all to see.

The final whistle brought an end to Blackpool’s pre-season, which consisted of three wins against lower league opposition (Southport, Salford City and now Fylde) and three defeats in their higher-profile games against Leeds United, Rangers and Everton.

That about sums it up for me, Blackpool did what they were expected to do while building their fitness as they went along. But there’s still plenty of questions to be answered ahead of the visit of Reading at the weekend.