Survival battle not over yet

12:44pm Thursday 20th March 2008

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With Easter arriving early this year, the Blackpool squad enters that tail end of the season period when the days get longer and the pitches recover and the games get tenser.

When the Seasiders walloped Charlton 5-3 and followed up with a silky win at Norwich, just three weeks ago, safety from relegation looked to be within touching distance.

Especially with the next four games being against teams in the bottom half of the table, and three of them at home.

But only three points have been added since, all courtesy of drawn home games, and the job is not yet done.

The game at Stoke this Saturday is perhaps the start of the final battle for survival.

The players have given their all this season and competed well against every other club, but it will all be for nothing unless sufficient points can be gleaned from a tough run-in which consists of seven potentially difficult encounters.

The trip to Stoke is followed by a journey to south London to face Crystal Palace. The capital has never been a very happy hunting ground for the Seasiders.

The final three home games see high-flyers West Brom and Watford visit Bloomfield Road, and Sheffield Wednesday, who are fighting for their lives, and improving.

There are also long away trips to Cardiff and Plymouth.

So there is likely to be a big tangerine following at the Britannia stadium this weekend for the last away game within reasonable travelling distance, and they will be hoping for a surprise result to ease the fears and push the club beyond the 50 point barrier.

The manager has similar team selection issues again, and will be hoping for better news of Paul Dickov, still to return from his hamstring injury.

Simon Grayson seems pretty settled on his defence and midfield line-ups, and will select his forwards when he has clear news about Dickov.

The other main doubt surrounds the fitness of Keith Southern, who missed out on Saturday and was replaced by Michael Flynn.

Stoke will be missing three of their most influential players of the season through suspension.

Top scorer Ricardo Fuller, Championship Actim ratings leader Liam Lawrence, and key defender Ryan Shawcross, on loan from Manchester United, will all miss out.

Carl Dickinson and Andy Wilkinson, who both had loan spells at Blackpool last season, are likely to be included in the squad of sixteen.

Even with three of their top performers missing, Stoke can still field a side brimming with Premiership experience in the form of Carlo Nash, Chris Riggott, Andy Griffin, Richard Cresswell, Rory Delap, Salif Diao and Paul Gallagher,.

The Potters have stuttered recently though, since hitting the top of the table, winning just one of their last five league games, and scoring only twice in the process.

They will be looking to get their promotion push firmly back on track this weekend, but perhaps this is an opportunity for Blackpool to steal an unexpected point or three at a crucial time.

If that is to happen, there will need to be an improvement in the sharpness in the final third compared to last Saturday, and a more focussed defensive display than during the most recent away game at QPR last week.

Blackpool had the better of the match on Saturday, especially in the first half, but clear cut chances were at a premium and the visitors appeared determined not to lose this one.

While Preston manager Alan Irvine seemed content with the point, Grayson was not. He said: "Inside I am a little bit disappointed because I felt that the first half performance warranted the three points and over the ninety minutes we looked like the only team that was going to win the game. And yet we didn't."

"I might be disappointed not to have won on Saturday but to take four points off Preston this year and four points off Burnley, we'd have settled for that."