Why Michael Appleton is confident Blackpool can give league leaders Sheffield United a run for their money

The Seasiders make the trip to South Yorkshire on the back of three encouraging displays against Norwich City, Sunderland and Watford.

While Appleton’s side only won one of those three games, their performances and attitude deserved more and that gives Pool’s head coach plenty of confidence heading into this weekend’s trip to Bramall Lane.

“We just have to go into it with the same attitude we have these last few games because we’ve had three really, really tough opponents for different reasons,” Appleton said.

“We’ve faced Norwich and Watford who came down from the Premier League last year and we’ve competed with them. Sunderland for all the other reasons, the stadium, the crowd and what that can do to you.

“We will go there full of confidence. We will go and try and make sure we have the same attitude and see what we can do.”

Despite last Saturday’s win against Watford being Blackpool’s first victory in five games, Appleton insists he was never unduly concerned by his side’s poor form.

The statistics back up his argument too, as the Seasiders have continued to create chances and caused opponents problems.

“Sometimes if you just look at a result, you might think they’re a bit unfortunate, but we create chances – xG tells me that,” Appleton added.

“It’s a big part of the game now, everyone talks about it. It backs up your performances and the reality is if you weren’t creating those chances you’d be a little bit worried or concerned.

“But we have been, so there’s no reason not to lose confidence.

“We’re in most of the games we’ve played and I will say it again, I’ve only been truly disappointed once coming away from a game and that was the Rotherham game.”

This weekend might be a good time to play the Blades, given their form has slumped in recent weeks with a draw followed by back-to-back defeats.

Despite the three-game winless run, Paul Heckingbottom’s side remain top of the division, albeit ahead of Norwich only on goal difference.

But, like Blackpool, the Blades are struggling with an injury crisis of their own with as many as nine players out, which forced Heckingbottom to change his formation and name four youngsters on the bench for the 3-1 defeat against Stoke City at the weekend.

“It had a massive impact because we had to change everything about us,” he said.

“Whenever you’ve got key people missing, it hurts you. But in terms of looking at the performances, no-one could have complained had we beaten Birmingham and QPR even though we’ve got a lot of players missing, because they were good performances.

“Stoke was battling and good in moments, but it’s not the team we want to put out. We know it’s needs must.

“It’s had a huge impact but there’s nothing we can do about it. We still expect to come and win the game.

“We know the situation we’re in, we’re not going to moan about it. It is what it is.”