Relegation is starting to look an increasingly likely outcome for Tuesday's opposition Blackpool, who have turned to Mick McCarthy to help save them from a season riddled with red cards and injuries - blogger Mitch Cook's Left Foot is our man at Bloomfield Road.
Where has it gone wrong for Blackpool this season?
Where hasn't it gone wrong for Blackpool this season would be a much shorter answer. We've had a nightmare with key players injured, a contagious kamikaze desire to get sent off emerging amongst the squad and transfer dealings that have, in a stroke of utter genius, more often than not added yet more injured players to our pile of broken, mangled and useless footballers.
Blackpool league results so far…
Blackpool 1-0 Reading Connolly 9
Stoke 2-0 Blackpool Clarke 33, Brown 75
Blackpool 0-1 Swansea Ntcham 87
QPR 0-1 Blackpool Bowler 45
Burnley 3-3 Blackpool Brownhill 3, Tella 11, 33 — Corbeanu 21, Lavery 74, Yates 76
Blackpool 3-3 Bristol City Bowler 7, Yates 55, Corbeanu 90 — Conway 44, Semenyo 63, Ekpiteta og 70
Blackpool 0-1 Blackburn Brereton 16
Huddersfield 0-1 Blackpool Corbeanu 38
Rotherham 3-0 Blackpool Ogbene 34, Harding 82, Kelly 85
Millwall 2-1 Blackpool Flemming 14, Afobe 63 — Patino 33
Blackpool 0-1 Norwich Pukki 21
Sunderland 0-0 Blackpool
Blackpool 3-1 Watford Madine 10, Yates 81, 85 — Louza 29
Sheff Utd 3-3 Blackpool Mcatee 8, Ndiaye 23, Norwood 90 — Yates 30, 42, Dougall 51
Blackpool 1-3 Hull Dougall 31 — Longman 26, Docherty 35, Slater 79
Blackpool 4-2 Preston Yates 30, 81, Patino 68, Hamilton 90 — Whiteman pen 38, Connolly og 89
Coventry 1-2 Blackpool Palmer 40 — Madine 53, Yates 80
West Brom 1-0 Blackpool Yokuslu 85
Blackpool 0-1 Luton Berry 57
Blackpool 0-3 Boro Jones 15, Forss pen 48, Akpom 65
Wigan 2-1 Blackpool McClean 54, Tilt 88 — Madine 34
Blackpool 0-0 Birmingham
Cardiff 1-1 Blackpool Etete 36 — Madine 67
Hull 1-1 Blackpool Estupinan 77 — Carey 28
Blackpool 1-2 Sheff Utd Ekpiteta 55 — Berge 18, Mcatee 49
Blackpool 1-1 Sunderland Lavery 21 — Stewart 66
Watford 2-0 Blackpool Ademayo 72, Sarr pen 87
Boro 3-0 Blackpool Akpom 32, 59, McNair 69
Blackpool 2-2 Huddersfield Lyons 82, Bowler 90 — Pearson 36, Koroma 86
Blackpool 0-0 Rotherham
Swansea 2-1 Blackpool Sorinola 21, Connolly og 73 — Carey 70
Blackpool 1-0 Stoke Poveda 7
Blackburn 1-0 Blackpool Dolan 31
Reading 3-1 Blackpool Ince 13, 72, Carroll pen 70 — Carey 90
Blackpool 0-0 Burnley
Bristol City 2-0 Blackpool Weimann 58, Scott 81
Appleton felt like a dodgy fit to start with given the history, how much blame goes his way? What did he get wrong?
I am in a small minority who still felt he might have turned it around on the pitch. What he wouldn't have turned round is his relationship with the fans which went from a begrudging sense that we'd give it a go if we absolutely had to, to a full-on muttering/grumbling/frothing hate campaign as soon as we started slipping down the table. Personally, I didn't mind his blunt style as much as others, but his habit of not doing anything on the touchline and griping about being booed was anathema to a tangerine fanbase used to a more passionate, tubthumping approach.
What he got wrong was relying too much on youth in key positions and trying to play a style of play that really needed an experienced and tough tackling central midfielder with two lads with less than 30 career starts between them and a combined weight of about 12 stone wet through was never going to work.
Mick McCarthy, bit of a desperate appointment? Seems to be trying and failing to draw every game 0-0. What’s he changed and how you found him?
I like Mick the man. Mick the manager… I don't know. I've tried convincing myself that he’s installing a solid base, but we've been so shot shy it's been painful and we've continued to concede goals. The problem we've got is we just don't have many Mick players. The few we've got are (wait for it) injured. Gary Madine going down after less than 30 seconds on Saturday was essentially our season in a very bitter and brittle nutshell. We've now got one striker. He's not very big. Yay! Let's launch it at him anyhow!
What January business did you do?
Oddly, we started by bringing in Appleton-type players in Morgan Rogers and Josh Bowler plus the defensive midfielder we'd been crying out for in Tommy Trybull. We then sacked Appleton and appointed the polar opposite in Mick. We then signed Curtis Nelson and the injury prone Charlie Goode (who promptly received a season ending injury). Rogers looks good, but mostly playoff the bench. Bowler looks like a faded photocopy of himself. Nelson has done pretty well but (previously injury prone) Trybull is yet another casualty of our injury curse/crazy desire to sign injury risks.
Summer Ins >>> Dominic Thompson, 21, LB, Brentford, Undisclosed >>> Callum Wright, 22, CM, Leicester, Undisclosed >>> Liam Bridcutt, 33, CM, Lincoln, Free >>> Rhys Williams, 21, CB, Liverpool, Loan >>> Lewis Fiorini, 20, CM, Man City, Loan >>> Charlie Patino, 18, CM, Arsenal, Loan >>> Theo Corbeanu, 20, CF, Wolves, Loan >>> Ian Poveda, 22, RW, Leeds, Loan
Summer Outs >>> Josh Bowler, AM, Forest, £2m >>> Richard Keogh, 35, Legend, Ipswich, Undisclosed >>> Ethan Robson, 25, CM, MK Dons, Free >>> Reece James, 28, LB, Sheff Wed, Loan >>> Oliver Casey, 21, CB, Forest Green, Loan >>> Grant Ward, 27, RM, Released >>> Cameron Antwi, 20, CM, Cardiff, Free >>> Owen Dale, 23, LW, Pompey, Loan >>> Matty Virtue, 25, CM, Lincoln, Loan >>> Bez Lubala, 24, LW, Colchester, Loan >>> Doug Tharme, 22, CB, Accrington, Loan
Winter Ins >>> Andy Lyons, 22, RB, Shamrock Rovers, £200k >>> Curtis Nelson, 29, CB, Cardiff, Free >>> Tom Trybull, 29, CM, Sandhausen, Free >>> Morgan Rogers, 20, LW, Man City, Loan >>> Charlie Goode, 27, CB, Brentford, Loan
Winter Outs >>> Callum Wright, 22, CM, Plymouth, Undisclosed >>> Grant Ward, 28, RM, Bristol Rovers, Free
Best players this season, and weak links?
Our top players this year are probably Jordan Thorniley and Jerry Yates. Yates runs like maniac every week and has a shot once a month as reward. Thorniley defends manfully for an hour every game, before eventually a weight of chances takes its toll. We've also got Ian Poveda who is literally as good as Maradona but Mick doesn't trust him as he's not entirely sure if he's the mascot or not so that's probably a moot point.
The weak link is the overall shape of the squad. It just doesn't make any sense. If you want individuals, then… Left back Dom Thompson is a lovable lad but can be relied on to wander off all over the place at inconvenient moments. I wouldn't want to single too many out to be honest cos we could be here all day but the key issue is that the midfield can either pass it but not tackle or tackle but not pass…
We can therefore either not create chances because we've got no footballers in there or, not create any chances because the footballers can't get the ball. It's been fun seeing how we'll contrive to not threaten the opposition goal this week…
Survival chances?
After what I've written, it seems madness to predict anything but doom. Football is delusional though and I can't help but think we're going to pick up some points somewhere. We're so painfully devoid of confidence that I'm telling myself that if we can, somehow, get a win from somewhere, we can get two and then three and the confidence will transform us into the true state of tangerine wizardry that lies deep within all Blackpool teams*
*Except the ones that are a bit shit…
The frustration is, we've got some decent players and all year, it's felt like we might just be able to find a formula to make it work. Who knows.
Maybe we'll find that on Tuesday…
Links >>> Blackpool Official Website >>> Bloomfield Road Ground Guide >>> Blackpool Gazette — Local Press >>> A View From The Tower — Message Board >>> Seasiders — Podcast >>> The Mighty Pool — Blog >>> Blackpool supporters trust >>> Mitch Cook’s Left Foot — Contributor’s Blog >>> Measured Progress — Blog
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