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.

Blackpool get 4 points out of 6.

The Seasiders last two games have been played at home, which has been a rare occurance so far this season. Last Monday evening we welcomed

West Bromwich Albion (the Baggies) to Bloomfield Rd and what was anticipated as an entertaining game turned out to be the opposite. They had two players sent off, which reduced their options and resulted in a very strange game. The first sending off was followed by referee Michael Oliver awarding us a penalty, which Charlie Adam converted, although Carson the baggies goalie nearly saved it. The second sending off, a reckless lunge by Gonzalo Jara on Luke Varney was well deserved and was a result of him being annoyed by the first sending off. What that did made the remainder of the game an unbalanced affair. The home crowd were getting more and more restless at the team's inability to capitalise on their two player advantage, which seem to add to the player's nervousness.  Although we went 1-0 up through the penalty, it took until the 62 minute for us to make it 2-0 when Luke Varney scored. This seemed to give us the impetus to go forward more and we had a number of chances to improve our goal difference, but to no avail because of poor finishing. This poor finishing nearly resulted in the nine men of West Brom getting something out of the game when they pulled a goal back through a great individual effort by Mulumbu to make it 2-1. Thank goodness we managed to hold on and register our first home win since returning to the Premiership and a valuable 3 points.

In contrast, the game yesterday against Everton had everything the Baggies game didn't have. It was entertaining, end to end stuff, full of good football. The Toffee's start to the season has been a slow  one. They have struggled to get going, but recent results have improved to such an extent that they have gone on an unbeaten run. Their team included internationals from all parts of the world unlike their hosts. That said, the game was a close affair. It was also good to see Seamus Coleman return albeit in a blue shirt rather than a tangerine one. He had a superb match topped off with a second equalising goal. 16,000 fans packed Bloomfield Rd and created a fantastic atmosphere, which encouraged both teams to produce a nail-biting game. We took the lead through a superb Neil Eardley free-kick on the edge of their box. Unfortunately our lead only lasted two minutes before Tim Cahill headed in an equaliser from a Yakubu cross. Both sides went into half time level at 1-1. Ollie had given Keith Southern a start, mainly because Everton was his first club and David Moyes was and still is the manager there. Unfortunately Keith struggled to make a mark and was substituted shortly after the restart. On came Phillips, Grandin and Harewood, which gave us the impetus we lacked earlier. The changes resulted in us taking the lead again through man of the match, David Vaughan. But yet again our lead only lasted a couple of minutes before Seamus levelled. Opinion was that Matt Gilks could have done a lot better by keeping the shot out but let it squirm under his body. Everton had a couple of chances to win the game after that as did the Pool, with Marlon Harewood scoring what looked like our winner, only for referee Andre Marriner to disallow it for a very innocuous "push" by Marlon on Jagielka. On reflection I think a draw was a fair result and a great advertisement for entertainment.

Wayne Rooney et deux.

Well, 24 hours on, the the Rooneygate saga takes an unexpected turn. After harping on about wanting to leave, critizing the club about lacking ambition, disrespecting his manager by putting out a statement saying he wasn't injured when Fergie said he was and disrespecting his fellow players by intimating they aren't up to his standard, he has decided to sign a new 5-year deal. Rooney might think he has managed to get what he was hoping for i.e. better wage deal, longer contract and a commitment by the club to ship out players no longer needed and replace them with new quality players. This is where I think Sir Alex and the United board have pulled off a better deal for themselves than Rooney has. I say this because Fergie is not in the habit of forgiving players who step out of line and Rooney has done that big time. United now have the upper hand. If Rooney had been allowed to go in the transfer window or in the summer, United would have got peanuts or nothing for him. Now they can put him up for sale and demand a sum equivalent to what they value him at. It would not surprise me if they did eventually sell him because like I said earlier Fergie is not the type of manager who likes to be upstaged by a player, especially  one as young and immature as Rooney. After all, Rooney's form has been very poor since he broke his foot last season and his confidence is shot at too. It would be ironical if one of the new players who eventually arrive at United in the new year displaces Rooney. You should always be wary of what you wish for Wayne, because life sometimes has a habit of coming back and bite you on the bum.