Numbers up at the Seaside

Last updated : 01 August 2014 By Tony Scholes

The very public standoff between chairman Karl Oyston and new manager José Riga has seen their recruitment plans all but collapse. Riga apparently wanted four foreign players in to form the backbone of his team but, to date, none of them have arrived.

Their pre-season has been interrupted. The planned trip to Spain was called off with not enough players to go and the only game they've played, to date, is a friendly at Penrith four weeks ago.

Earlier this week the doors finally opened and players started coming in. Looking at who was arriving though would suggest Oyston, who has also had a very public spat with Latvian shareholder Valeri Belekon this week, is winning.

Matt Gilks is ready for an early return to Bloomfield Road

The first two to arrive were Jacob Mellis and Tomasz Cywka on Wednesday, both of whom were at Barnsley last season. They were followed by former 'Pool centre half Peter Clarke, released by Huddersfield, and then yesterday in came former Aston Villa and Burnley loan striker Nathan Delfouneso, this time on a permanent deal after two loans there in the past two seasons.

It's not stopped either. Today they've been joined by Costa Rican international José Miguel Cubero. He played in the recent World Cup and has been signed from Herediano. He said: "I am very happy to sign for Blackpool, it is a dream come true."

Finally, they've signed West Brom defender Donervon Daniels on a 28-day youth loan, taking the total number of players at the club to 14.

That should be enough for tomorrow but that 14 does not include a goalkeeper and, just to make things more difficult, they will be without Tom Barkhuizen with a knee injury whilst both Steven Davies and Gary MacKenzie are expected to be ruled out with injuries.

That takes us back to 11 so it means there will still be some trialists in the Blackpool team which I don't think makes it the ideal game for us.

If Davies and MacKenzie are out then they will select from: David Perkins, Bobby Grant, Sergei Zenjov, Tony McMahon, Charles Dunne, Jacob Mellis, Tomasz Cywka, Peter Clarke, Nathan Delfouneso, José Miguel Cubero, Donervon Daniels plus others.

Seven days after this Blackpool will play Forest in their opening Championship game. We are a further nine days away from our opening league fixture and we are at the point at which we played Carlisle last year having just returned from Ireland.

It will be a return to Bloomfield Road for goalkeeper Matt Gilks. Last time he played in a fixture between the two sides was on Good Friday when he was beaten by Michael Kightly for the only goal of the game.

With Tom Heaton still ruled out with a calf injury, Gilks will almost certainly start and I'd expect him to play the full game again as he did at Preston.

Heaton will again be joined on the sidelines by Michael Kightly but both Ashley Barnes and Steven Reid, who is still to play a game for the Clarets, could play after recovering from groin and thigh problems respectively.

Sean Dyche will select from: Matt Gilks, Alex Cisak, Kieran Tripper, Steven Reid, Luke O'Neill, Michael Duff, Kevin Long, Jason Shackell, Ben Mee, Danny Lafferty, Scott Arfield, Ross Wallace, Dean Marney, David Jones, Matt Taylor, Steven Hewitt, Danny Ings, Ashley Barnes, Lukas Jutkiewicz, Marvin Sordell.

I was trying to think when we last played a friendly at Bloomfield Road and the only one I can come up with was one that was hastily arranged in 1972 after we'd failed to reach the final of the Watney Cup.

An attendance of just 2,300 saw a Burnley team without the injured Keith Newton, go down to a 2-0 defeat with the Blackpool goals coming from Keith Dyson, a former work colleague of mine, and Alan Ainscow.

A week later we embarked on a brilliant promotion season that saw us return to the top flight for a three year stay.

The teams that day were;

Blackpool: John Burridge (George Wood 45), Dave Hatton (Peter Hardcastle 45), Bill Bentley, Glyn James, Peter Suddaby, Dave Lennard, Tommy Hutchison, Alan Suddick (Chris Simpkin 45), Keith Dyson, Frank Barton, Micky Burns (Alan Ainscow 45).

Burnley: Alan Stevenson, Mick Docherty, Geoff Nulty, Martin Dobson, Colin Waldron, Jim Thomson, Billy Ingham, Frank Casper, Paul Fletcher, Eric Probert (Alan West 45), Leighton James.