What's happening??

Another very poor game to watch. What's happening, we seem to be light years away from the football we playing last season. What's happened to the Spanish style of football Ollie wanted us to play? Ok, we've lost Adam, Vaughan and Campbell, but hey, the bulk of the side is still the same. Like I've said previously, we've started the season in a steady rather than inspiring way. If I was Ollie I would get my defence sorted out pretty damn quick. We had the worst defensive record last season and although we have not let in as many so far this season we still look extremely shaky. He doesn't seem to have a fixed back four in mind like other teams. I don't think the Cathcart/Evatt combination works and I don't think full back is  Alex Baptiste's best position either.  I would have him as a centre back covering Evatt. Cathcart to often finds himself out of position and he is not commanding enough in the air. I'd have Crainey, Evatt, Baptiste and a n other at right back. Eardley is to inconsistent for me and lets his head drop too quickly when things aren't going his way. Ollie must try someone else in this position who perhaps he hasn't tried before. Midfield is an area we have completely lost this season. Barry Ferguson just does not do it for me at all, neither does Keith Southern both are not creative enough, the latter especially. To be honest I've never been a Southern fan. Ok, he's been a loyal servant, blah, blah, blah. But he has never been a goal scoring midfielder or creative. He only looks comfortable when he passes the ball backwards. What I can't understand is, last year we seemed to have a glut of midfielders all vying for a permanent position there. Yet this season they all seem to have disappeared along with Adam and Vaughan. GTF, again is too inconsistent for me. One week he plays out of his skin and produces a match winning performance and the next like today he's anonymous on the pitch. Kevin Phillips is exempt from criticism because the guy is class and is always likely to produce something out of nothing. At this moment in time I feel we are not good enough to be pushing for promotion and see us having a a pretty uninteresting season. But what do I know. Anybody agree?

Seasiders hit the 'ammers buffers...

Well it was bound to happen, a 4-0 drubbing by a team managed by an ex-manager, namely Sam (I got sacked for not getting them promoted) Allardyce. He's had the hoodoo on us since it happened all those years ago. He was manager at Blackburn last season when they came to Bloomfield Rd and beat us 2-1. It's always the same when someone from the club, whether it's a player or management comments on how well we're going to do prior to a game. It was Steve Thompson who said mid-week how after the international break the players were raring to go and looking forward to the West Ham game. Yeah, well so was I Steve, but that was before the game. After it I was embarrassed and disappointed with the way we played. Even after last week's 5-0 beating of Bristol City I was still apprehensive about our ability to mix it with teams who were not frightened to splash the cash on players. West Ham being one of them. Losing players like Adam, Campbell and Vaughan, who together made things happen for us over the last two seasons was always going to be a blow. For me Barry Ferguson has not made the impact expected and when you team him up with Keith Southern in midfield you just know we're going to struggle. I've always thought our start to the season has been steady but nothing to shout home about. Once again Ollie has been forced to rely on loanees, which on the one hand allows you to get rid of them if they don't perform but on the other hand if they do, their worth increases, which makes it even harder to agree a fee at the end of their loan spell. I thought Ollie's decision to play Baptiste, Hill, Evatt and Crainey in this back four formation to be a mistake. Baptiste and Evatt should be the central partnership with Crainey at left-back and a n other at right back. We play Doncaster at home on Tuesday night and I hope we can put Saturday's game behind us and start to play something like we did last season.

My views so far....

After all the excitement of playing in the premiership and visiting most of the away grounds I feel I am suffering from withdrawal symptoms. This season has got off to a reasonable but not a dynamic start. I'm not sure Ollie has got the balance of the team right yet. Ok, most of the squad is still intact, but we're missing that vital spark that allowed us to play free-flowing attacking football, which made us everyone's second team last season. I'm not totally happy with our midfield, the Ferguson/Southern combination is a very poor replacement for the Vaughan/Adam one. The signing of Kevin Phillips has been a master stroke, the guy is a total professional, with a great work ethic. But he needs better support from others around him. It appears Jonjo Shelvey is joining us on loan from Liverpool for the season so we'll have to see what he brings. What I saw of him at Liverpool didn't really impress me, although competition there is a lot harder than at Blackpool. The last two games against Portsmouth and Coventry were both disappointing as far as I am concerned. This seems to typify how this season we are unable to hold onto a lead or finish opponents off, which in turn makes us susceptible to letting in late goals as we did at Pompey. Bristol City are here tomorrow and gives us an opportunity to get back to winning ways. Although Brett Pitman might try to get one over us, but if we get back to playing attacking football we might just start to get our campaign off the ground.

Have we any confidence in FIFA?

Crisis, what crisis, claims FIFA president Blatter. This is the man who is seeking another 4 year term in office after presiding over it for the past 12 years. The fact he is head of an organisation, which is riddled with claims and counter-claims of corruption seems to be of no consequence to him. He states, we will sort out any problems within the family. It reminds me of the old Soviet Union type of election, where the existing politbureau members vote themselves in unopposed. Better late than never, the English and Scottish FAs have registered their opposition to tomorrow’s vote, saying it should be postponed until the accusations have been dealt with. Although a bit late in the day to make a proper impact, both FAs claim to have growing support from other football authorities. They will need at least 50% of other FAs to support their resolution for it to be successful. Otherwise Blatter will smugly sit at the head of an association tarnished with accusations of wrongdoings for the next four years. Both he and his European stable mate Platini, who have a combined dislike of anything English, will continue to put obstacles in the way of any technology that will improve the game. I for one, think there is a need for an alternative world football organisation to challenge FIFA, because until then we will be governed by something that leaves a rotten taste in your mouth. If the 75 year old Blatter had any integrity, he would voluntarily step down and let independent adjudicators investigate the claims of corruption before holding fresh elections, with more than one candidate to choose from.



The dream finally ends....

Well the dream is finally over. It still feels extremely raw even 24 hours later. I suppose I’m like a lot of fans who really take it bad when we lose, don’t play to our full potential or like yesterday, get relegated. I try to shut it out of my mind by whatever means necessary. When we lose, I never what Match of the Day, I don’t watch the news just in case they show excerpts of the game, I avoid newspapers and I generally go to ground until such time the hurt starts to diminish. I didn’t have a ticket for the match at Old Trafford, mainly do the fact our allocation sold out to season tickets holders of 5 years or more, all 3,000 of them. What a paltry amount to allocate to visiting fans when Old Trafford now holds 75,000. It’s no wonder United are hated by most fans. So, as I don’t subscribe to that other hate of mine, Sky, I was forced to listen to BBC’s Five Live, with Jimmy Armfield commentating. I normally watch any Pool games I can’t get to on-line via WWW.livefootyonline.com but I’ve just got rid of my Virgin broadband because of our proposed house moving (that’s another story I’ll write about shortly) and replaced it with 3’s mobile broadband, which is ok for most things but live streaming is not one of them. So, as the game progressed I skipped from radio coverage to BBC TV coverage on channel 301 where Gaby Logan, Dion Dublin, Steve Clarridge and Garth Crooks held court to Sky Sports on-line and back again. I couldn’t settle all afternoon because one minute I was down then I was consumed with pride when Charlie equalised and Gary Taylor-Fletcher did the impossible when he put us into a match winning position with 20 minutes to go. But you just knew it would never last, being a Seasider for far too many years has taught me never to take anything for granted, in fact over the years it makes you the supreme pessimist. And with other results not helping, in particular Wigan (who have been in the bottom three all season along with Wolves) beating Stoke away, you knew we were doomed no matter what we did. Notice the pessimism creeping in again. When our fate was finally sealed I fell into a silent depression, which lasted until about a couple of hours ago. Ok, so I’m a bad loser, but that’s because I have always been competitive in everything I’ve done, ask my wife and daughter, they’ll confirm this. In fact my daughter even refuses to play Monopoly with me. She always blames me for putting her off the game. Well, it’s back down to Championship next season, which if I’m honest for me is more enjoyable than the premiership. Well at least we can expect regular Saturday football with disruption down to a minimum unlike what we’ve had this season.

Right down to the wire....

This is turning out to be one of the closest premiership relegation battles for years. In recent times having reached 39 points would have guaranteed you another season in the top flight, alas not this season. Most teams can look back and wince at the number of chances and drop points they've had, ourselves included, but that's what makes footy the best game in the world. We go into next Sunday's game at the home of the new champions elect, needing a win to at least give us a fighting chance of staying up. Any one of five teams could go down with West Ham. Fortunately Wolves play Blackburn and like us, both need to win to be totally sure of survival. With Wigan and Birmingham both playing away at Stoke and Spurs respectively, nothing is certain. I still hope Wolves    and    Birmingham    will   join West Ham in the championship rather than us or Blackburn and Wigan, simply because we are all North West clubs. Sunday  certainly won't be for the faint-hearted, with rival fans glued to radios and phones etc, relaying scores throughout the match. It's just a pity we didn't manage to stay out of the bottom three, which would have made the last day a little bit more comfortable for us, but like I've said, being a Pool fan has never been easy. If we do get r*******d, there are some things I will not miss about the premiership. Players feigning injuries, blatant time wasting, over paid prima donnas, too many backroom staff and advisors, poor match officials and the disruption to match days by the television companies. If we do manage to stay up, then it's a burden I'll be willing to carry. I'm a martyr to meself.

A 4-3 cracker.

It's strange but the last time we beat Bolton 4-3 was on a Cup Final day, albeit 58 years ago. It's no wonder the football neutrals and television companies love Blackpool Football Club. If nothing else, we serve up entertaining football, usually with plenty of goals. Today's game had huge significance, which if we hadn't won would have made next weeks final game at Old Trafford meaningless. It's a pity Wolves won again and Blackburn managed to eke out 1-1 draw against United, because our league position remains the same as last week. Nevertheless, we go into the final game still with a chance of staying in the premiership for another season. What fairy tale ending that would be, going to Old Trafford and winning whilst those in trouble around us, losing.

The clock's ticking....

I felt I'd lost a £1.00 and found 50p yesterday. Ok, before the game I would have gladly settled for a point at Spurs, especially as they over-ran us in the first 30 minutes. But as we came more into the game we gave as good as we got. A number of chances fell our way, but unfortunately none counted. Our workrate helped us to keep Spurs' internationals under control, but without providing an end product. Then is a space of a couple of minutes we went from dispair to elation, when first Charlie had a penalty saved only for him to be given a second chance, from which he scored to put us 1-0,with 15 minutes to play. We always knew it would be a nail biting time and we knew Spurs would throw everything our way, but we still managed to hold things together until the 89th minute. In the past Ollie has been criticised for not trying to defend a lead, so yesterday he brought on Craig Cathcart to shore up the defence, but unfortunately he wasn't quick enough to close down Defoe who equalised from the edge of the box. That was my 50p moment. There I was, one moment thinking, wow, 3 unexpected points only to feel disappointed with the one point I would have been happy with at the start. Sadly for Gareth Bale, Charlie's tackle on him looked very nasty and he will count himself lucky if the FA don't punish him for it. If they do, let's hope it's not before the last two remaining matches. West Brom's poor performance today against Wolves has meant we are back in the bottom three. So, our fate we be decided next Saturday when we host Bolton, because anything short of a win will mean relegation. That will prompt us to look at all the points we have thrown away, which if we had won would have put us in a mid table position. But if football was that easy no one would get relegated.

Three games to go.

With just three games to go we are still above the drop zone. So, if the end of the season table stays the same we will be playing premiership footy for another season. Saturday's match against Stoke wasn't pretty to watch and the strong wind made conditions even more difficult for both sides. Yet again we nearly shot ourselves in the foot just before half-time, by gifting Kenwyn Jones possession and when he rounded Gilks and with an open goal at his mercy it looked odds-on we'd go in 1-0 down. What does the £8m striker go and do? Misses it by a mile. Relief all round for the home faithful, disbelief for the travelling ones. It puts the criticism levelled at our strikers when they fail to score in perspective, when their average worth is no where near the price paid for Jones. Talking about criticism, which is something I don't like doing with any player who don's the tangerine shirt. I have to register my concern about Charlie Adam's lack of consistency since the start of the new year. Ok, he set his heart on moving on in January, but seemed to accept his move would be delayed until our fate would be decided come the end of the season. Take Saturday's game, he looked off the pace, gave away possession to easily, decided to take all the corners and free-kicks despite Eardley and others being better placed to do them. Being captain also brings responsibilty with it. I would expect a captain with the talent he has, to be geeing up and trying to motivate the players around him all through the game, like Shawcross did for Stoke. Alas, Charlie failed to do the same. He gives the impression of not being able to do that if he is below par himself. Perhaps he's carrying an injury and his form is suffering because of this. If so, he needs to let some one else take his place, otherwise he risks jeopardising our chances of staying up. On a positive note, the immergence of Ian Evatt as a premiership player cannot be underestimated. For me he should be made captain. You can tell he hates losing and will let others know if he feels they are not doing enough. Since Alex Baptiste and him have been at the heart of our defence, we have looked far more solid than before. Although Craig Cathcart is a good player, I think Ollie was justified in dropping him to the bench. Survival is still in our hands and we should concentrate on winning our remaining games and not rely on others. That means 100% concentration at all times and ensuring we don't give silly goals away.

                                  COME ON POOL WE CAN DO IT.

The Seasiders show their true spirit.

As the season reaches the final stages, the Seasiders are just hovering over the relegation zone. Last week's disastrous effort against Wigan was forgotten when we entertained Newcastle United (The Toon) at Bloomfield Rd. Although the game ended in a 1-1 draw, the psychological impact of our performance was immense. We did everything but win, even coming back after going a goal down through, yet again, another Charlie Adam assisted back pass. He does it too often for it to be a coincidence and if he wants to be taken seriously by the big clubs he needs to eradicate it from his game pretty darn quick. But getting back to the game, each and everyone of the players were excellent, chasing, harrassing and winning everything, so much like the team who won promotion and storm the premiership at the start of the season. We play another tough team this Saturday in the shape of Stoke City, so we have to show again the same fighting spirit if we are going to avoid relegation. With Man City finally beating Rovers and hopefully Stoke do the same against Wolves tonight, we'll remain out of the bottom three. But we have to make sure we win as many games as we can and not rely on other results. KEEP THE FAITH.

Where do I start?

As the title suggests, "where do I start". Two things are a major concern to me at the moment. One is, trying to sell my house and the other is Blackpool FC's premiership survival. Ok, you might say if that's all you got to worry about you're pretty damn lucky. I know, but it's still getting on my nerves. It's now 14 months since I put my house up for sale. Since then I've put the sale in the hands of on-line estate agents, high street estate agents and tried advertising it myself via numerous free on-line house sale sites. All have been unsuccessful, although my efforts alone did result in viewings unlike the so called professional outfits who produced b***** all. So, as a last resort I've put my house up for auction this Wednesday, April 20th 2011, starting at 2pm, with an auction house,  at a guide price of £130,000 to £140,000. This is considerably lower than I would have liked, but one has to be realistic in the present market. Having said that, now the auction is getting nearer the auctioneer is softening us up with the classic, "Oh we're worried that your property is not attracting the number of viewings we had anticipated, and suggest you reduce the guide price accordingly". Hang on a minute, this is the super confident bloke that turned up initially and proclaimed "we are the areas leading successful auction house and we'll sell it for you". It was him who set the original guide price. Is everyone associated with selling houses, be it the ones I've already mentioned together the financial advisers, mortgage lenders, surveyors, solicitors and some I can't think of right now, in it together to rip-off ordinary house owners like myself? Because it damn well feels like it is. Everyone of them has or will  get some money out us in one form or another during this long drawned out process. So, keep your fingers crossed for me this Wednesday and hope I can finally get things moving with getting the house sold.

Right, second on my list, Blackpool FC. God, why couldn't I have been born an Arsenal, Chelsea or United fan instead of nailing my colours to the tangerine mast. If you've read any of my previous ramblings you would have realised the Seasider's results since the start of the new year can only be described as disappointing. Yesterday we plunged to greater depths of despair by losing

3-1 to a Wigan side who were lying at the bottom of league prior to this home game. I did something I've not done before, I left the ground at half-time, because I felt self harm coming on or worst still harm to my fellow fans sitting within reach of my clenched fists if I continued to watch this one-sided match. My plight wasn't helped because my season ticket seat is now located in the sunshineless south stand, which is made worse by the fact we were transferred from the sunny north stand when the club re-organised the home fans seating arrangements. The result would have been slightly more bearable if we had gone down fighting, but we capitulated soon after the start. We never expected the ride to be easy after years of languishing in the lower leagues, but to see the total lack of effort by players who were only a few months ago being praised for their style of entertaining football was very hard to take. Even worse was seeing the opposing fans jumping up and down goading us with chants such as "we're s**** but we're beating you". I am writing this 24 hours later and yet I am still hurting. Like I said earlier being a Pool fan is never easy. Newcastle up next and a hell of a lot of hard work to put in before then. Come on Ollie, get it sorted.

Survival or rel.........

......I can't bring myself to write the opposite of premiership survival on here. We go into the final stages of the season when points are essential. It wouldn't be Blackpool if we didn't make things hard for ourselves, which we have since the start of the year. Just thinking back to when we leading against United, Bolton, Blackburn and Everton only to see that lead disappear and instead of getting 12 points, we ended up with two. The 10 missing points would have left us in a very safe place. Unfortunately, we are just hovering above the drop-zone. Last Sunday's defeat against Arsenal was not totally unexpected, but this Saturday's game against fellow strugglers Wigan is a massive game for both clubs. We need to stop the slide now and get back into a winning mentality. Otherwise we'll seal our own fate and all the know-all pundits will be telling us "they told us so". We deserve another season in the premiership because we have shown we are capable of playing attractive football against the bigger teams and getting the results. It would also give us a better chance to bolster our squad with quality players. Last season was a mad rush following on from our play-off success and something that did us no favours. But Ollie has managed to get the best out of the players that have cost a fraction of the price of other teams. Ok, football is a hard master and good luck stories are not guaranteed, but let's just hope our particular premiership good luck story continues starting on Saturday with 3 welcomed points.

It's getting a bit nervy...

Yet again we let a 2-0 advantage slip through our fingers on Saturday against Rovers at Ewood Park. Ok, we managed to hold on to a point unlike the United game but nevertheless these are increasingly nervy times being a Seasider's fan. 5,000 of us turned out in force to support the lads, but this wasn't enough to secure all three points. Looking critically at the game I've got to say we were responsible for our own downfall. The two goals Rovers got were both defensive blunders. We had plenty of times to clear our lines but made a complete "Henry Halls" of them. Apart from the first 20 minutes of the game we were well in control, 2-0 up, two goals disallowed and looking as though we could get more as the game went on. Second half starts and we give away a goal to one of their worst technically gifted players, Samba, who looks more at home guarding a nightclub door than playing the beautiful game. I bet he was more surprised than anyone when his shot found the net. So from then on it was typical "Alladyce" style from Blackburn, long balls and long throws up field hoping to barge their way to victory. I know Alladyce has long departed, but old habits die hard down at Ewood and so the boring tactics he employed seemed to bear fruit in the end when Howard Webb (having one of his off-days) gave a foul against Gary Taylor-Fletcher, for God knows what? This led to a last minute free-kick from which Rovers could only have dreamt about at half time resulting in an equaliser. Richard Kingson, who in the past I have repeatedly supported, tested my loyalty to the limits. He was a fault for both their goals and so I too call for him to be dropped before it is too late. But he wasn't alone, the usually ever dependable Baptiste also had a game to forget. Our next game away at Fulham won't be easy, but at least another weekend off because of international games should give Ollie time to get the players in the right frame of mind for the final run in.

Wolves 4 Blackpool 0.

Oh God, you don't realise how much that score line pains me to write down. We go from beating a top side like Spurs midweek to a 4-0 drubbing from a side languishing at the bottom of league today. No disrespect to Wolves, but they are no great shakes and to lose by the margin we did today is nothing less than shocking. Neil Eardley should be hanging his head in shame after the performance he put in today. He was truly awful, but my biggest criticism must be levelled at a player I think is one of our most consistent performers, DJ Campbell. What the hell was he thinking about getting sent off just before half-time, for a stupid loss of composure. At that stage we were only 1-0 down and although we never looked as though an equaliser was on the cards we still lived in hope. From then on it was like trying to push a steamroller uphill. You know what today's result means? I won't be able to watch Match of the Day tonight or read tomorrow's papers, because of the pain. I'll now have to go into meditative state to try and erase today's game from my memory in readiness for Saturday's game against Chelski.

Deja vu...

Oh dear, I seem to be suffering from deja vu since the start of the New Year. Every week I turn out to watch the Mighty Seasiders and I'm coming away from the game feeling the same. Massively disappointed, apart from a certain visit by the red side of Liverpool in January. Yesterday's excursion took me to the blue side of the city, Goodison Park, a ground I must say which makes our ground look like state of the art. I digress, I'm putting off the inevitable. Our performance yesterday can only be described as suicidal. Ok, we're getting praise from all quarters because of our cavalier attacking style of football, but to counter that our defensive play boarders on the ridiculous. We have players who only a couple of months ago played out of their skins to grind out excellent victories, but now look a shadow of their former selves. I don't want to be known as an entertaining and somewhat naive team who gets relegated after only one season in the premiership. I want us to survive and get stronger. I was disappointed when after being 1-2 down we managed to go 3-2 in front, only to see that lead disappear and end up losing 5-3 with a quarter of the match to go. The main reason for this was Ollie's decision to bring on three of the most uninspiring subs you could think of, namely Keith Southern, Rob Edwards and Marlon Harewood. Southern, I'm afraid should not even be on the subs bench, has been a loyal servant to the club but simply not good enough for this division. Edwards, I think still has a bit to offer but to be thrown in at such a late stage with only a couple of first team matches under his belt, was too much to ask.  As for Harewood, this guy has been a massive let down. The only time I've seen him put in a reasonable performance was when he was playing for a contract. Since then, he's been extremely poor. It's no wonder the West Ham fans were singing, "there's on one Marlon Harewood" the other night when they beat us, because he was laughable. Unfortuately, as soon as we go a goal behind now the player's heads visibly drop. I've also noticed they are starting to argue amongst themselves. These aren't good signs and I am now wondering for the first time this season whether Ollie's magic touch might just be starting to slip. Ok, we are still a few points away from the relegation zone and in a better position than some of the other teams, but we need to start winning again and soon. We must keep the faith and get behind the manager and lads like never before.

Bad run continues.

Last night's game against West Ham was one of those you wanted to forget pretty damned quick. Ollie made a couple of changes, which frankly in the first half did not work at all. He decided to drop Ian Evatt to the bench, link up Baptiste with Cathcart and bring in Carney at left back, with Eardley on the other flank. All the defence with the exception of Carney had a nightmare in that first half. I also include Kingson in that. He has started to show a bit of inconsistency of late, which was summed up with his handling clanger for the first goal. Baptiste and Cathcart played like a couple of schoolboys pitched up against the more experienced West Ham attack and you knew it would only be a matter of time before their defence would be breached. Andy Reid had a reasonable introduction and showed some fine touches early on and was unlucky not to score with one effort that Green had to palm over the bar. Their second goal like the first boardered on the rediculous. The defence was all over the place and although Kingson did well to keep the ball out twice until he was beaten by a fortuitous poke by Robbie Keane, you just knew it was going to be one of those nights.  Charlie Adam's goal  came from one of the worst corners he has ever taken but took the West Ham defence by complete surprise as it trundled all along the ground into the net. It came just before half-time and gave us some hope of a comeback. Unfortunately about 2 minutes later West Ham had scored again and by that time the game was just about over. We did come back into the game more in the second half with the reintrodution of Evatt, Beattie and to a lesser extent Harewood, but the damage of the first half performance was too much to claw back. West Ham are a far better side than their current league position suggests but we should have at least got a share of the points. It was a horrible game to watch and strangely the state of our pitch once again caused us more problems than the opposition. They moved the ball about very well and found their players easily, whereas we couldn't control the ball sufficiently to make it count. There was so many negatives about last night but I don't want to finish on a downer. James Beattie, although looking slightly overweight, looked to be a handfull when he came on. I was also impressed with the way he tried to gee up the other lads when they looked low on confidence. We are currently going through a bad spell, which Ollie needs to work his man management technique on the players like never before. I was disappointed in the way the home crowd left in their hoardes well before the final whistle, but on the other hand I understand their frustration. But we can't support the team like crazy when we're winning and then sneek off sheepishly when things are not going our way. We play Everton on Saturday, so come on you Pool fans get behind the lads and show your support.

Blackpool Football Club

Well, thank goodness the transfer window is out the way. I suppose it does have its good points, but it don't half create a lot of anxiety for clubs, managers, players and more importantly, us fans. We've had the Charlie Adam, "is he going/is he staying" nonsense for months now. Well, he's staying albeit a bit begrudgingly, at least until the summer when our premier league fate will be known. I know I have given our chairman, Karl Oyston, a bit of stick in the past, but I've got to give credit where it's due. He stood firm and stopped Adam leaving the club despite bids from Liverpool, Aston Villa, Birmingham and at the last minute from Spurs. I mean some of the bids were laughable, but that hasn't stopped the club selling their best players in the past. Since he took over, Karl has turned the club around financially, so that we no longer have to sell our players, something unthinkable in the past. Having said that, he can be an absolute pain at times with his tight-fisted approach, which has left many a proposed move dead in the water. This latest saga put an unbelievable amount of pressure on the chairman to let Adam go, mainly from the player's agent and the player himself when he put in a transfer request in prior to the window opening. Even Adam's father chipped in saying Blackpool were a "cheapskate" club by blocking his son's move to Liverpool. Nothing about how  the club helped to resurrect the player's career and gave him the chance to prove his previous club wrong in selling him. Since Ollie came to the club, Adam's profile has gone through the roof with the way he has moulded the team around him. Still, I am glad he is still with us and with the important signings Ollie has managed to bring in. We're up against the Hammers tonight, who are playing for their survival, so I anticipate a free scoring game. Let's hope we can get some points on the board. COME ON YOU SEASIDERS.