Blackpool drew 1-1 earlier today away at Sheffield United in their latest pre-season friendly.
With the start of the season less than a week away, many were expecting ‘Pool manager Ian Holloway to start with his preferred starting XI for Friday’s opening Championship game away at Hull, but he didn’t. Indeed, picking the XI that Ollie will start the season with looks a difficult task at present with our new look side still taking shape.
‘Pool starting XI: Gilks, Harris, Hill, Evatt, Eardley, Ferguson, Sylvestre, Grandin, Clarke, Ormerod, Trialist (believed to be Toifilou Maoulida).
The first action of the game saw the Blades have a penalty appeal turned down after the referee deemed Bob Harris’ challenge on Daniel Bogdanovic legal.
Indeed, the Blades offered far more going forward than the Seasiders, with the hosts coming close to opening the scoring on several occasions.
And three minutes before the break they did take the lead; Ian Evatt misjudged the ball, and Bogdanovic laid on Erik Tonne, whose effort was saved by Matt Gilks but found its way to Chris Porter who smashed in the rebound.
Ollie made eight changes at the break with only Hill, Evatt and Ferguson remaining on the pitch. Trialist Dean Bouzanis, Crainey, Baptiste, Southern, Taylor-Fletcher, Ince, Phillips and Sutherland were the players to come on.
However, ten minutes into the second half, Ferguson went off injured and was replaced by Angel Martinez.
With twelve minutes to go Sutherland further enhanced his growing reputation with the equaliser after running onto Gary Taylor-Fletcher’s flick-on.
Djordic replaced GTF who had picked up a slight knock late on, but ‘Pool were forced to settle for a draw.
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