Blackpool boss Neil Critchley is remaining calm about his side's defensive record despite a poor outing against Luton on Saturday.

The Tangerines fell to a 3-0 defeat at Bloomfield Road, leaving their manager frustrated after they showed some positive signs, plus having more shots and more possession, before the visitors clinical edge shone through.

Speaking to Lancashire Live following the defeat to Luton, Critchley said: "It was a soft goal to give away, the goals were poor, the first and second were poor.

“You have to be careful that you don’t just go game-by-game so just because something happened in one game, the last game, doesn’t mean that’s a problem that is more apparent.

“I like to work off trends, I’ve got good staff here, we speak, we discuss, we have things to back up our judgement, whether that’s right or wrong and it can help form our idea of where the team is and what we need to improve upon."

Blackpool, who sit 15th in the Championship and are winless in their last six matches, have the worst record when it comes to conceding high quality chances from dead ball situations - just under a third of their goals conceded have come from set pieces out of 25 goals in total.

“That can then form what you train and the content of your training," he added. "It's very dangerous just to go game-by-game so our defensive record up until Saturday in the previous five games was very good.

“It would be easy to then think well this is wrong and that is wrong, when actually there might not be as much wrong as you think there is.”

The Verdict

I do make Critchley right when he says that his side's defensive record in the past five games before Saturday's loss was good. Despite not taking away three points from any of them, they managed to stay tight at the back and concede only one goal in four of the games against Stoke, QPR, Swansea and Birmingham - the fifth being a goalless draw against West Brom.

However, the fact that nearly a third of the 25 goals they've shipped in this season have been from dead ball situations highlights a weakness in their side and is definitely worth working on in training.

The last time Blackpool conceded three in a game was almost three months ago against Huddersfield. Was Saturday a one off? Possibly. Regardless, it is clearly an issue for Critchley and I think that it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later, as well as figuring out how to find the back of the net when they have good patches of football.