I suppose I’m feeling slightly
better than I did yesterday following our defeat by West Ham at Wembley. Got to
admit I had this uneasy feeling all week we were not going to do it this time,
despite our previous 100% winning record with play-offs at Wembley. Ok, West
Ham were cast iron favourites, which isn’t that surprising considering the
amount of money they had available to buy players compared to us. This makes
our performance all the more better and if we had put away the chances we had
it would be us playing in the premiership next season and not the Hammers. Matt
Phillips in particular should certainly have converted at least one of his
efforts. Instead he fluffed both attempts. Although he is attracting the
attention of several top clubs I find he drifts in and out of games and ball
watches too much. He obviously has potential, but like many other former
players who use Blackpool as a stepping stone, he will find it very difficult
to keep a first team place if he chooses to move on. He should see what has
happened to Adam, Campbell and Vaughan since they left. All have struggled
despite being better players. Stephen Dobbie was also wasteful yesterday with
his efforts. In fact I forgot he was playing in the first half because his
contribution was woeful. Obviously Ollie had a word with him at the break
because he seemed to realise he had to do something. When Ince scored the
equaliser straight after the start we had one of our better periods and had
West Ham reeling, but like I said earlier we squandered too many chances. You
always knew it would take a late goal to settle the game and so it was.
Unfortunately, it went to them when Vaz Te scored the winner. This is the guy
who had done nothing all through the game and was totally outplayed throughout.
No justice, eh? Our boys deserved to win and did us all proud, but it’s goals
that count and they got more than us.
