Holloway looking for Blackpool to revive promotion spirit

The Seasiders have plunged into danger after winning just one of their last 13 Barclays Premier League games.

A year ago Holloway’s men staged a remarkable late push to sneak into the Championship play-offs and then go on to win promotion at Wembley.

They maintained that momentum to make a flying start to top-flight life but form has deserted them since January and last week’s loss to Wigan left them in the bottom three for the first time.

Holloway said: “It is just a run. Lots of teams have gone on these type of runs and in this league it is really difficult to get out of it.

“We have got to look back at the times we have played and scored and won games people would never have believed we could do. That is still there.

“Every good run starts and stops and every bad run starts and stops. I can’t control whether someone is a bit nervous or the occasion gets to them, but I have got to believe now that our lads, with the run-in we had last year with 10 games to go, why can’t we do that with five games to go?

“We don’t need a mountain of points. There are probably five teams still in it and we are one of those five. We have got to try to clamber out up to the two that are going to be lucky.”

Holloway hopes the shock of slipping into the relegation zone can work to his team’s advantage.

He added: “Now we are down there we have got to get out.

“I think we are in a better place because we are used to looking up more than looking down. I think it will suit us.

“It was always going to be this way, I have said it all along,” he said.

“We have got five games left and the chance to achieve a miracle, which is staying up.”

Midfielder Jack Colback has told manager Steve Bruce to count him in for Sunderland’s fight to stay in the Barclays Premier League.

The 21-year-old academy graduate was handed his first league start for the club at Birmingham last Saturday as injuries and a dismal run of results forced Bruce into yet another reshuffle.

Colback did not let his manager down with an assured display, although he could not prevent the Black Cats slipping to a 2-0 defeat, the club’s eighth in nine games.

Bruce hopes to have senior men Kieran Richardson and Sulley Muntari back for today’s vital clash with Wigan.

Colback said: “You feel the passion of the crowd every time you play, and it’s great to be playing for your hometown club, so to speak.

“I have been here since I was 10, so it’s as good as, so it’s just great to play for them.

“It’s just unfortunate the way it has been going at the minute,” he said.

“The way the league has gone this year, it looks all doom and gloom now, but two wins and we could be back in the top 10 and everyone forgets about the past eight or nine games.”