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Don Goodman speaks to Football League World about the rumours linking Matt Bloomfield to Bloomfield Road

EFL pundit Don Goodman believes Matt Bloomfield could be "a very good option" at Blackpool, as the Tangerines look to replace Steve Bruce.

Blackpool are looking for a new manager after dismissing Bruce following a start to the campaign which saw the play-off hopefuls second-bottom in League One, with seven defeats in their opening 11 games. Since then, a defeat at Stockport has made it eight in 12.

Bloomfield was sacked from Luton Town two days after Bruce was sacked from Blackpool. Despite picking up double the amount of points as Bruce did at his former club, the Hatters' lofty expectations didn't meet the results in the opening stage of the campaign. Luton are currently five points off the top six with a game in hand.

Ironically, Matt Bloomfield's final game at Kenilworth Road was against Blackpool, and now he looks close to taking over that game's opponents, as he had held talks with the Seasiders.

Don Goodman felt that Bloomfield's tenure at Luton "hadn't been a disaster," and therefore believes that he'd be able to take the Tangerines out of the bottom four and back up the division to where they thought they'd be challenging.

Don Goodman endorses Blackpool's hunt for Matt Bloomfield to become their new manager

In an exclusive interview with Football League World, former Wolves and West Brom striker Don Goodman felt that Matt Bloomfield's tenure at Wycombe Wanderers gave him the right to have a crack at the Championship at Luton, and despite eventual relegation and a sub-par start to life back in League One, his run wasn't all bad.

"I think Matt Bloomfield earned the right to an opportunity in the Championship with Luton," he said.

"They got relegated to League One, but they put up one heck of a fight when all looked lost after his first five or six games in charge, so they finished strong, and I think that's where the disappointment [this season] is.

"Luton would have been expected to be right at the very top, and they're actually not that far from the play-offs with a game in hand, so it hasn't been a disaster, but the expectations were very high, and rightly so."

Given the Hatters won six and drew three of their final 12 Championship games last season, and received parachute payments from the Premier League this summer after their first of their back-to-back relegations in the 2023/24 campaign, expectations were high to dominate and get back to the second tier with minimal fuss.

That hasn't been the case, but Luton still won five of their opening 11 games this year under Bloomfield. Unlike at Blackpool under Bruce, it hasn't been a disastrous opening few months, and the former Hatters boss could hit the ground running at Bloomfield Road.

"Blackpool are looking for someone with a proven pedigree at the level to get the best out of a squad who haven't shown their best this season," Goodman added.

"So I think, given who is currently available, Matt Bloomfield could be a very good option for Blackpool."

Blackpool's season can still be salvaged, but things need to be sorted quickly

Given Blackpool's pre-season expectations and the solid transfer window they had over the summer, the opening couple of months of the campaign have been nothing short of disastrous.

However, the season is still relatively young, and despite currently holding a 13-point gap between themselves and the top six, there's still plenty of scope to cut that down between now and late April.

That does mean that whoever the Tangerines choose to take the reins will need to turn things around immediately. If Bloomfield is their man, he'd need to replicate something similar to what he did at Wycombe last season before he moved to Luton to do so.

Blackpool have the players to make a mid-season surge up the table, and Bloomfield has shown that he can average two points per game in this division in the past, so if it all comes together, the Tangerines could still meet their pre-season expectations come May.