AFTER relegation from the Premier League, Blackpool lost 15 players.

The turnover at Blues – ins and outs – totalled 37, and there was the change in manager and coaching staff.

It’s never easy to regroup in the Championship, not least when financial problems exact a vice-like grip, as in Blues’ case.

But both Saturday protagonists are making a decent go of trying to bounce straight back.

And they are attempting to do it in a way that has the accent on opening up the opposition rather than stifling and suffocating them.

Ian Holloway said in the lead-up to the game that his Seasiders have gradually got to grips with themselves and the league again after a remodelling.

And the point took them into the Championship play-off zone, with Blues hot in pursuit.

Chris Hughton has had a much harder task in retooling Blues, and balancing the domestic demands with the enjoyable Europa League jaunt.

You sensed from Saturday that both sides should be there or thereabouts come the shake-up in May.

And arguably with a little more fine-tuning – and no transfer window bomb exploding in January – Blues could well be in even better shape when the business end of the campaign arrives.

They could easily have won at Bloomfield Road, where Blackpool have collected five of their seven victories so far.

They were at times severely tested by Blackpool’s movement and their manner of finding angles for runners from deep, the sides or down the middle.

An intricate, problematic side, that like to stretch opponents, Blackpool on their own patch are difficult to nail.

Yet Blues weren’t too far away from doing so.

There were a couple more missed sitters and had Matt Gilks not thwarted Marlon King’s close-range header 11 minutes before King scored, Blues could have been in a real position of strength.