Our push to European glory 2024 suffered a minor blip on Tuesday but as the below diagrams illustrate, there's a thin line between victory and defeat. The performance wasn't all that different to the Sheffield United game, aside from Keshi's effort went in and Jerry/Sonny's didn't. As the sagest of pundits (i.e. all of them) say in a knowing voice - "Fine margins"
In fact, if they really fancy themselves as top notch analysts, they'll stretch to "Fine margins at this level" which doesn't make any sense because at any given level you are at, the teams will be matched as they're also at the same level and thus the margin of difference between teams won't alter at different levels. 'Levels' is some bullshit people twat on about on telly getting paid for. We're at this level, we're of this level and we're equal to who we play because they're at this level too. Our players have 'stepped up' and all of that shite. I've got that off my chest now. I feel lighter.
I don't have any prescient feeling at all about this game. If the weather keeps up, it will be challenge in itself. I'm sad not have the chance to see Richard Keogh sweep his rain drenched hair across his head, but looking forward to everything else. Jimmy must play at left back and someone else come into the middle. It's ok in an emergency but we've got 5 centre backs at the club and we don't need to play a left back there, not least because that left back is very good at playing left back. Will Dan Grettarson be the new Jordan Thorniley, banished to the dreaded and mysterious 'Bez Lubala/Ollie Sarkic/Joe Nuttall void' or will he make a triumphant return today? Is Callum Connolly simply the third choice right back and the fella who comes on with 6 minutes to go in midfield? Is Ollie Casey a thing?
It could be a classic night under the lights or a cold windy mess. The beauty of the whole chaotic beast is finding out what happens next...
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Critch obviously picks Jimmy at CB. He does what the fuck he wants. He also picks Dale, Bowler and Keshi in a sexy as fuck midfield three behind the man, the myth, the legend that is Gary Goals Gaz Maz Goal Machine Madine.
I really like this line up. I don't like Jimmy at centre back, but I'm always excited to see something new so Reece James playing his actual position at LB will keep me from worrying to much about Jimmy not playing his. I feel like this is a team to get at the opposition and when you are attacking, you don't need to defend.
It could be a classic night under the lights or a cold windy mess. The beauty of the whole chaotic beast is finding out what happens next...
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Critch obviously picks Jimmy at CB. He does what the fuck he wants. He also picks Dale, Bowler and Keshi in a sexy as fuck midfield three behind the man, the myth, the legend that is Gary Goals Gaz Maz Goal Machine Madine.
I really like this line up. I don't like Jimmy at centre back, but I'm always excited to see something new so Reece James playing his actual position at LB will keep me from worrying to much about Jimmy not playing his. I feel like this is a team to get at the opposition and when you are attacking, you don't need to defend.
The atmosphere is good. I naturally balk at any changes to kick off time to accommodate Sky TV. Football is ours, not theirs and they can fuck off and take their squarials and their Gary Nevilles with them but it has to be said, there's a certain buzz in the air. We're on show. A minutes impeccable silence is observed. I sometimes flippantly use the phrase 'louder than war' to describe Bloomfield and the noise we make but nothing can be as loud as the death and horror invoked by the bugle call.
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Pool are on it from the off. We're snappy, sharp and everything we weren't against Stoke, winning the second ball, looking to find space, moving it crisply and playing with some verve.
We even manage to take a good corner. It's whipped from the left, flicked on and Kenny Dougall storms in and crashes it home. YESSSSSSSSSSSS!
NO! What? Eh? How? Why? Who? It seems like 30 seconds has elapsed before anyone realises it isn't a goal. I have no idea why it isn't a goal. My phone buzzes and my mate has sent me a still of what looks like a goal plus a knowing comment about how I bet I wish we had VAR (ha ha ha). I hate VAR. VAR is deathray bullshit. It's soul eating shite. And yet...
Let's get the ref out of the way first. The team deserves not to have the rest of the blog be punctuated by my fury at his ineptitude. Refs have a hard job. This lad was, to use a technical term, fucking shite. So was the linesman on at least one side. Fucking shite is kind. My 10 year old suggested 'corrupt' as an alternative to foul language. I'll go with the profanity but you do wonder sometimes...
We keep playing. Dale has got a lovely trick where he flicks the ball up and spins past players with it. He's like a little whirlwind. Keshi is loving being in the middle and Bowler is revelling in their defence having to worry about other players aside from him. Gary is trotting about in the middle playing the role of nucleus to the charged electrons around him. It's a delight to behold.
QPR have a little spell. They knock it about a little bit. They look quite handy if you let them play but we're doing a good job of not doing. That is, until one of them comes inside, kind of out of nowhere, cuts across the box and launches a wicked curling effort that Grimshaw has no chance with. It smacks the post with a taut clang and hits the back of the net. It's a superb finish. It's a horrible papercut of a goal that happens without you fully being aware of it then stings long after it happens.
We keep playing. Dougall is at his best tonight, finding that tiny space to play it in a crowded middle, making the tackles and disrupting their possession. Wintle is an able foil. Around them we play. James and Gabriel get forward. Marvin and Jimmy sit in and tidy up. Everything is good. Except the scoreline.
There's another ball from wide. Marvin sliding onto a Madine knock down. It's bundled away via the post. Bowler drills through on the right. Dale torments his man on the left. James skids it in, it's hacked away. Marvin pulls some incredible skill out in the box. to keep an attack alive. He's a central defender and he's dropping his shoulder and spinning, laying it wide. That's how we're playing. That's how we play more of less the whole half.
We even manage to take a good corner. It's whipped from the left, flicked on and Kenny Dougall storms in and crashes it home. YESSSSSSSSSSSS!
NO! What? Eh? How? Why? Who? It seems like 30 seconds has elapsed before anyone realises it isn't a goal. I have no idea why it isn't a goal. My phone buzzes and my mate has sent me a still of what looks like a goal plus a knowing comment about how I bet I wish we had VAR (ha ha ha). I hate VAR. VAR is deathray bullshit. It's soul eating shite. And yet...
Let's get the ref out of the way first. The team deserves not to have the rest of the blog be punctuated by my fury at his ineptitude. Refs have a hard job. This lad was, to use a technical term, fucking shite. So was the linesman on at least one side. Fucking shite is kind. My 10 year old suggested 'corrupt' as an alternative to foul language. I'll go with the profanity but you do wonder sometimes...
We keep playing. Dale has got a lovely trick where he flicks the ball up and spins past players with it. He's like a little whirlwind. Keshi is loving being in the middle and Bowler is revelling in their defence having to worry about other players aside from him. Gary is trotting about in the middle playing the role of nucleus to the charged electrons around him. It's a delight to behold.
QPR have a little spell. They knock it about a little bit. They look quite handy if you let them play but we're doing a good job of not doing. That is, until one of them comes inside, kind of out of nowhere, cuts across the box and launches a wicked curling effort that Grimshaw has no chance with. It smacks the post with a taut clang and hits the back of the net. It's a superb finish. It's a horrible papercut of a goal that happens without you fully being aware of it then stings long after it happens.
We keep playing. Dougall is at his best tonight, finding that tiny space to play it in a crowded middle, making the tackles and disrupting their possession. Wintle is an able foil. Around them we play. James and Gabriel get forward. Marvin and Jimmy sit in and tidy up. Everything is good. Except the scoreline.
There's another ball from wide. Marvin sliding onto a Madine knock down. It's bundled away via the post. Bowler drills through on the right. Dale torments his man on the left. James skids it in, it's hacked away. Marvin pulls some incredible skill out in the box. to keep an attack alive. He's a central defender and he's dropping his shoulder and spinning, laying it wide. That's how we're playing. That's how we play more of less the whole half.
Madine wins a header. The referee books him for winning it.
QPR break a few times. That's about as much as you can say about them. We're either knocking it about probing and shaping attacks or we're attacking. The whistle is greeted by a hail of boos for the referee. They're deserved.
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It's been good. Aside from the referee. More of this but without the misfortune please.
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QPR start quite well but their pressure only lasts a few minutes and yields one effort. Keshi gets absolutely scythed down. Poleaxed. The referee reaches for the obligatory yellow. He books someone for just about every whistle, regardless of the incident. Shoot a player (yellow) accidentally brush a sleeve (yellow.) I hate to say this, but Keshi gets up too quickly. It's a horrendous challenge.
I'm losing my head a bit. I'm losing my voice a bit too, even in the genteel surroundings of the south stand, the noise is swelling around me. This is one of those nights where the game could last forever and I wouldn't mind. The singing rolls around the stands, the fireworks cast a magic spell above them. For every flat, turgid, bad tempered game you've been too, where a grumpy crowd shivered and grumbled their way through a tepid match that never got going, there's a night like this, where it's sheer, unadulterated magic to be there.
Gabriel has been outstanding. He's been at his marauding best, playing full back centre back and right wing all at once and doing it well. He's gone again and this time, Husband spots him with a long raking pass. Gabriel controls superbly, goes inside his defender, suddenly he's in, he pokes it past the keeper who takes his legs.
PENALTY!!! We probably won't get it with this jester of a referee. YES!!! HE'S GIVEN IT.
Shit it's a red card! It must be. Gabriel was about to tuck it into an empty net, the keeper was on the floor, he'd sold himself totally. We were going to score. That's a red card. Don't bottle it. Don't bottle it. Don't bottle it.
FOR FUCKS SAKE YOU BOTTLING TWAT YOU FUCKING BOTTLED IT. FUCK OFF. FUCK OFF. FUCK OFF.
Big Gaz places it down. Big Gaz, steps back. Big Gaz is calm. Around him swirls a storm of nerves. Big Gaz is beyond such things. He strolls in. He strokes it in the bottom corner... YES!!!!
A goal is a goal but a Gary goal is a goal and a little bit more. Madine is cool as fuck as everyone leaps on him. He was done, finished, an injury liability and all that, but here he is. Slotting it home. It's the least we deserve.
Lets go and win this. A ball over the top. Keshi races away, but it's just a touch too wide and we can't get players up to him so far advanced is he. Madine coaxes it down from the sky, shimmies inside and cracks an effort wide. Bowler and Gabriel just cause nightmares for their full back. Bowler runs round him, then loses the ball, so Gabriel picks it up and runs round him instead. Gabriel cuts inside and throws some incredible skills, before just over running it. Gabriel again goes inside then wins a corner except the lineman doesn't give it because, well, because it's like that. They run it out of play and he doesn't give a throw. Because it's like he's not really watching the game as intently as I am which is odd cos I'm no getting paid to do so and am further away than him by quite a distance.
The game goes a little bit flat for a few minutes. I'm worried about us tiring. Critch channels that worry and sends on Carey and withdraws Dale, he's done pretty well for me but Carey excites the hell out of me too. He's not been on long when he fluffs a moment. There's a little groan of frustration. Get behind him. Get behind him! Have we sent a kid into a moment he's overawed by? Get behind him!
Have we fuck sent him on to be overawed. He gets it. He gives it, he gets it back. Look at the space he's just made, stuttering forward, then back peddling, finding the optimum angle and the most freedom he could in that little square of pitch. One touch, a half turn, he's set, he's cracked it. It pings against the post, it makes the same high tensile 'ding' sound their goal did, but it takes the wrong turn this time, bouncing into the boards behind the goal.
Mitchell comes on for Bowler. Demi draws fouls. Another booking. Demi crosses one outrageously well with his wrong foot that's arcing towards a far post tangerine but is scuffed away from him. Time is running down, but Pool keep going.
Have we fuck sent him on to be overawed. He gets it. He gives it, he gets it back. Look at the space he's just made, stuttering forward, then back peddling, finding the optimum angle and the most freedom he could in that little square of pitch. One touch, a half turn, he's set, he's cracked it. It pings against the post, it makes the same high tensile 'ding' sound their goal did, but it takes the wrong turn this time, bouncing into the boards behind the goal.
Mitchell comes on for Bowler. Demi draws fouls. Another booking. Demi crosses one outrageously well with his wrong foot that's arcing towards a far post tangerine but is scuffed away from him. Time is running down, but Pool keep going.
One more chance. We deserve it. One more chance. That's all we ask. We're on the left. We're crossing, it's come off someone and Madine is coming in. He must score. The Goal Machine, at the far post. It's what he does. Somehow the keeper flicks out a palm and turns it away. It's one of those saves that Maxwell makes. He shouldn't be on the pitch. Maybe Madine was slightly hesitant or caught a little flat footed, I don't know, but I know for certain that their keeper shouldn't have been in goals to save that. So close. That was the moment.
They go up the other end. There's a horror show as they shoot from distance, it's the sort of effort that's from far enough out that you have time, in your minds eye, to see it going in and feel a taste of the horror of an undeserved cruel winner for the opposition before your actual real eyes transmit the truth to your brain. (it went over the top)
They go up the other end. There's a horror show as they shoot from distance, it's the sort of effort that's from far enough out that you have time, in your minds eye, to see it going in and feel a taste of the horror of an undeserved cruel winner for the opposition before your actual real eyes transmit the truth to your brain. (it went over the top)
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I have nothing critical to say about any of our players. We could have won that 3-1 and no one could have complained about it in the slightest. From Madine backwards, the attacking was superb from everyone. Every single player was on the front foot but with patience and control, not manic play. There was movement, balance, intelligence, individual skill, teamwork, bodies on the line and anything else you'd want to see. In some ways, that was one of the most enjoyable performances I've seen under Critchley (the final result aside.)
The ground was fucking sensational again. It's the highlight of my life at the moment to be there. Whatever that may say about my life, I don't care. It's hair on the back of your neck stuff. It's just pure support. It's something hard to put into words. These players give everything, so we give everything. There's pride. This is Blackpool. There isn't always pride in everything here. Sometimes it's all a bit cut and run and no one gives a fuck about i being any good. But this is something to be so very proud of. This is the opposite of what at times Blackpool can be or has been like. This is solid foundations, hard work and respect given. This just feels special. It is special.
QPR looked like they might be quite good on another day. I don't think they were bad today at all. We just bossed the game. It feels weird in that I'm writing as if they lost. They didn't, they got a point, but they got away with it, it was stolen from us, not so much by them, but by the officials. It feels for all the world like we won that match and I don't care, I am saying we did. If the ref and linesman can make it up and the police do what the fuck they want after the game*, then I'm having that as a 3-1 victory.
Onwards.
utmp
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*summat on that tomorrow. Don't want to be some self important cunt writing shit cos like I matter and my opinion is worth anything in particular cos I don't and it isn't but it's got to be said and I've held off saying it assuming naively that it would get sorted and if anything, it's been a new level of shit and it's potentially dangerous. Update: I wrote it. Read it here
Let the game be the game though. That's why we're here.
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Let the game be the game though. That's why we're here.
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