Kristjaan Speakman has broken the silence on 22 year old midfielder Elliot Embleton who has just helped Blackpool to promotion via the play-offs whilst on loan at Bloomfield Road, there has been strong rumours that the Tangerines want to sign him permanently.
"The easiest thing with Elliot would have been to loan him to League Two, and we held out and we held out because we were desperate to get him with the right club and the right coaching staff, Neil Critchley and the guys at Blackpool have done excellent with him, given him that platform and he's gone and performed. He's demonstrated the ability to play at the level we need him to play at, so when he comes back here he can hopefully impact our team. What we do know is it’s an easy decision in the summer with Elliot; he’ll come back and be in the squad. He’s come through our academy, we want to promote him and the reason for him going to Blackpool is for him to do what he’s done. We wanted him to be successful in a good side playing good football, helping to take points off other teams. He’s done that extremely well. We’re always examining the data side of his performance and we’ve been in touch regularly. When we looked at it in January, he might have ended up in a similar situation to Chris Maguire in the last couple of weeks where he's not in the 18 squad and that wouldn't be conducive to ours or his future moving forward into next season. He’s a great footballer, who can play off both feet, both channels, and he perfectly suits their 4-2-2-2 system. He’s done exceptionally well.”
