Michael Appleton shares his New Year’s wish for Blackpool ahead of Sunderland clash

The Seasiders kick off their 2023 with a home clash against Sunderland this afternoon looking to claim a first win in nine.

It’s been a difficult first half of the season for Appleton’s side, who sit second bottom in the Championship and two points adrift of safety.

Reflecting on Blackpool’s season so far, Pool’s head coach told Tangerine TV: “Looking back over the last five or six months, there’s been a lot of change that has happened at the football club.

“Hopefully the New Year will give us a bit more better luck and we won’t put ourselves in certain positions where we have to climb certain hills during a game, concede the first goal and make life difficult for ourselves.

“It will be good to get that first goal and really ask questions of Sunderland.”

Arguably the two biggest problems for Blackpool this season have been their injuries and ill-discipline, having been shown six red cards already.

That record is easily the worst in the Championship and by some margin too, with no other club receiving more than three.

Appleton knows his side can’t continue to shoot themselves in the foot if they’re to have any chance of pulling themselves away from the dreaded dropzone.

“It’s been difficult, there’s no doubt about it,” he added.

“There are certain things we can control but there’s also certain things we can’t control.

“Some of the injuries we’ve had have been difficult at times and you wonder how you can control those situations.

“But one thing we can control is the sending-offs we had in the first part of the season. Some of them were genuine mistakes and others were silly where we should have done better. Others were questionable from the authorities but that’s for another day.

“There’s been spells in games and in parts of the season where we’ve been very good and other parts where we need to do better, so we just need to be a bit more consistent.”