Blackpool academy director Ciaran Donnelly believes the close relationship between the first-team and youth set-ups is a huge incentive for the club's younger players to perform well. A number of them have trained with the senior squad at Squires Gate, giving them a taste of what they need to do in terms of taking the next step. Bloomfield Road head coach Ian Evatt has used the Vertu Trophy to give youngsters game time this season, with 10 of them having finished the defeat at Tranmere Rovers last November. The club's injury problems also saw a number of teenagers named as substitutes for League One games, though Theo Upton and Terry Bondo were the only ones to appear off the bench. Donnelly told Blackpool's in-house media, 'We've got a good relationship with the first-team staff. Even in my short time as a player here, the gaffer was here, I've known Crains (Stephen Crainey, assistant head coach) from working with him, I brought Dobbs (Stephen Dobbie, coach) and Eards (Neal Eardley, player pathway manager) to the club.' He added, 'We all know each other really well, so it's a relaxed atmosphere; there's no fear there. There's respect there and it's great that they want to come and be part of seeing the Under-18s on big nights. They talk openly and honestly about them, they have a passion for them because they've had them training with them a lot, so they want to see them do well. It's a really good thing to have and hopefully, the more that happens, the more that a player might just perform particularly well on an occasion where the manager thinks 'Do you know what, I'm going to give him an opportunity' and that's normally the way it works in this game.