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.