Blackpool boss shares the mood in Seasiders camp ahead of the final weekend in battle against Barnsley, Lincoln City and Oxford United for the League One play-offs

In order to move from eighth into the top six, the Seasiders need to claim three points away to Reading and hope results elsewhere go in their favour.

Fifth place Barnsley currently sit two points clear of Critchley’s side, while Lincoln City and Oxford United are both a point better off, with just goal difference separating them. The Tykes and the Imps are at home to Northampton Town and Portsmouth respectively, while the U’s travel to St James Park to take on Exeter City.

Previewing the trip to the Select Car Leasing Stadium, the Blackpool head coach said: "We’ve won our last few games, and we’re on a roll. We have to win on Saturday, so if we did that then it’d be five wins on the bounce, and we’d go into the play-offs with 15 points from 15. We’d go into it with belief, confidence and good form, so I very much hope that happens, but it’s out of our hands at the moment. Hopefully it’s not too late, and we’ve timed it nicely, but we’ll have to wait and see.

"If you look at when we got promoted last time, we finished third on 80 points, we’re currently on 73 and we’re not in the play-offs. We may only end up four worse off and not make. Our record isn’t dissimilar, but we’ve not shown the consistency away from home that would’ve got us those extra points.

"If we can get to 76 it might get us where we need to be, and to be honest, it doesn’t matter if you finish third or sixth, we’d be in and it’d be game on.

"We’re excited and optimistic. We wanted to make it exciting, and we’ve done that. In some ways it’s quite simple, it only becomes complicated if we win, but we have to. We’ve got to make sure we do our job, the worst feeling was to not do that and find out other results had gone our way.”