Blackpool v Bolton Wanderers - The Big Match Preview

Nine games, 35 days, very little margin for error. This white-knuckle ride has not yet been a fulfilling one, but it could yet produce something to get the adrenaline pumping.

Steven Schumacher reasoned that it would take “16 or 17 points” from the remaining fixtures to make sure Wanderers’ season is extended. And for that to transpire, the team would have to duplicate something akin to the form they have shown in the last nine games, stretching back to the head coach’s first win in charge against Crawley.

Taking into consideration the last 10 seasons that have been played out to a conclusion, only Wycombe in 2021/22 have required more than 77 points to finish in the top six.

For the record, the sixth-placed teams involved - Barnsley (76), Peterborough (77), Wycombe (83), Oxford (74), Doncaster (73), Charlton (71), Millwall (73), Barnsley (74), Chesterfield (69), Peterborough (74) – have averaged 74.4 points.

Schumacher has been a calm voice since his arrival. Still able to offer a relatively impartial view, as only a new manager can, he refused to over-react to the defeats against Bristol Rovers and Stockport County before the international break.

There is already a great deal of excitement building towards the summer, reflected in the club’s high season ticket sales, and the burden of promotion does not hang as heavily post-Evatt, even if it remains the target within the dressing room.

Whether that same carefree mood exists beyond this week is another matter entirely. In terms of emotion, there is more riding on Tuesday night’s fixture down the road at the Brick Stadium. Bolton fans have waited a whole decade to celebrate a win against Wigan, the defeats have cut much deeper.

We need only look towards last season, however, for evidence on how one result can affect the other. Wanderers had been riding high until a thumping 4-1 defeat at Bloomfield Road last February, with automatic promotion very much in their sights, yet the controversy of that afternoon on the coast spilled over to a game against the Latics a few days later, and despite playing well enough for an hour, Stephen Humphrys’ winner left Ian Evatt’s team flat on their backside and looking up from the canvass.

As we found out, the knockout blow would happen a few weeks later against Derby – another unlucky destination for Bolton down the years.

This will be the 15th time a Wanderers side has travelled to Blackpool looking for a win since their last in 1977. Frank Worthington and Neil Whatmore scored that day, shortly after Christmas, and Ian Greaves’ side would go on the secure promotion to the First Division with another win in Lancashire, this time Blackburn, a few days later.

What price another pair of victories against local rivals nearly 47 years later?

Blackpool have spent only a couple of weeks inside the top six, spending the last few months wedged in mid-table. Steve Bruce had been a high-profile and vastly experienced appointment last August when he replaced Neil Critchley, but his season has also been touched by tragic personal circumstances.

Suggestion that the Tangerines may already been ‘on the beach’ is premature – and a win on Saturday would see them close the gap on Bolton to just three points, a push for play-offs not completely out of the question for a team that has been beaten just twice since Boxing Day.

Wanderers captain George Thomason, released as a 16-year-old by Blackpool, has managed to score in three of the four times he has faced his former club.

But another backstory to keep an eye on this weekend could be that of Ashley Fletcher, who scored more than 150 goals for Bolton between the ages of nine and 12, supporting them from the stands and part of a family who has supported the club since the 1940s.

He has been in a rich vein of scoring form for Blackpool of late, and the former Canon Slade pupil looks like being the man Wanderers will have to stop.