That was the year that was: 21/22 Season Review

The other week I was using the facilities in a pub. A drunk scouser accosted me, demanding to know who I supported. 'Blackpool' I said. 'Blackpool? Blackpool? Fucking hell. We're gonna do the quad' he slurred. 'What the fuck have you won this season?' he demanded, a touch of latent aggression evident in the forthright way he jabbed his finger at my chest. 'Hearts and minds' I replied, fixing him with a firm stare. 

"Ha. Nice one mate. Nice one. Nice one" He appeared mollified. He gave me a big drunk hug. He hadn't washed his hands but then, that's the unique bond of football. A drunk scouser can accost you in slightly frightening way in a toilet then touch you with his pissy digits in a show of unsolicited manly affection and that's the beauty of the whole affair summed up in a single image.

Perhaps... 

Here is my attempt to sum up the last season in a loosely structured and meandering way. You don't not pay me to write short pieces of clickbait so therefore, I've just written a load of shite. It's not quite as long as a book though. (Do you see what I did there... subtle as a brick) 

Overall, it was a good year: Below is a load of things I liked... 

I am nostradamus: I predicted we'd finish 16th. We finished 16th. All in all though, we were a lot more comfortable than I thought we might me. I thought we'd be 10 or 12 points better than relegation, not 25, but then, the teams at the bottom were more shite and were deducted more points than I'd imagined. Still, there were very few teams who made us look daft. 

The noise. The noise. The noise. I don't know if it was the effect of lockdown on top of boycotting on top of the excitement of promotion but rarely has following the Pool felt so fucking good. I love noise. We made loads of noise. I could list lots of games that I really enjoyed, but probably my favourite match of the year was Bournemouth away in the sunshine. Pool blown away. Pool keep singing. Pool roar back and stun the gentile southerners. Pool make more noise. Everyone is happy. Everything is good. Everyone has given everything. I can hardly speak. It's how it should be. 

Keshi Anderson being ridiculous. I'll freely admit, I didn't really rate Keshi before this season. It is a matter of record that I thought that the one, the only, the singularly magnificent Sullay Kaikai was hard done by and that Keshi had offered much less than him last season but the impudence he played with in the first part of the season was a joy to behold. The golf putt finish against PNE, that mad assist for Lavery, the chop against Sheffield United away that sent us into the kind of rapture that lives long in the heart. Finesse. Innit. 

Josh Bowler being so electric that you could probably rig him up to the national grid and solve the energy crisis. It's not a goal that stands out for me with him, though there were plenty, not least in the outrageous run of form he had after Christmas, where for a few months he was as good as almost any player I can recall in tangerine, but his dribbling in general. If I think of Bowler, the first thing that comes to mind is a mad run he did several times (including against PNE), picking the ball up deep and accelerating steadily before hitting full speed, vaulting challenges like a hurdler on an Olympic track, indie kid hair trailing in his wake, the ball mesmerised and pliant, totally in thrall to his every whim, defenders turned into lumbering prehistoric club wielding neanderthals vainly trying to catch a cheetah in full flight. What a fucking player. Ok, his end product wasn't always there, but if he'd turned every chance he'd created into a goal, the boy would have broken records. My heart will be a little broken on the day he leaves. Sometimes he looked like he was playing a different game.

Marvin being absolutely unphased by the step up to a higher league. Marvin looking exactly like he did the season before, if not even better than the season before, despite playing against better players. I'd also add Jimmy Husband doing similar to be honest, even if haterz will hate that. But haterz gonna hate. 

Crazy Uncle Richard proving me oh so wrong. I missed the first two games on holiday. When I returned, I discovered that this 'Keogh' character we'd bought  wasa shit Oyston-era-esque past it has been washed up crock whose only skills were pointing, having weird hair, staring at stuff that's only in his mind and looking really sweaty and tired even before kick off. 

Here's what I wrote about him just a few weeks later about after the away game at Middlesbrough (another fucking diamond of an experience) 

I lose myself and then find myself as I realise how loud I'm screaming a guttural cry of joy. I look down and see Crazy Uncle Richard is doing exactly the same. It's as if we're screaming at each other. He's absolutely unbridled. It's pure delight. I fucking love it. The whole team is in front of us and the place has gone mad. What a fucking moment. Keogh to Marvin. Goal. Who needs strikers? 

By this time, I was completely smitten with Trickie Dickie Keogh. How a man can basically not be able to run, but still be fucking brilliant is beyond me. He thinks at whole different level. He's got some kind of Matrix level ability to see the game faster than everyone else and thus, from his view, slow time down and be in the right place at the right time. He loves it. He really, really loves playing football. He's still really good at it. 

Jordan Gabriel. The man never stops. He plays like he's on overdrive mode all the time. He's at right back. Now he's overlapping. Wait. He's just headed it away in the centre. Now he's picking up the loose ball in midfield. If we had 11 Jordan Gabriels then the pitch would probably have no grass left on it as all of them would be running and sliding on it all the time. I'm not really a man of faith but I might just have a sneaky word with the lad(s?) upstairs about his hamstring over forthcoming seasons. 

Dan Grimshaw's relaxed brilliance - Despite looking like he's fresh from an all nighter where he got so stoned he couldn't feel his own feet or the top of his head and me imagining he's carrying a bong made of an old coke bottle a bit of tinfoil and a grimy plastic bag in his kit bag, Grimmy is a really, really good goalkeeper. I think he might make an England squad one day. He's brilliant at making it look simple. He does very little until he does a lot. He never over elaborates. He's a zen goalkeeper. 

Gary Gaz Maz Goal Machine Madine (of course.) C'mon. Own up. Most of you thought he would be a bit part. A last 20 minute player. A sentimental contract extension. A crock. Couldn't be relied on. Etc etc. He wasn't.

He became plan A for the second season in a row. Feeding the little lads was proving a little bit difficult so we wheeled on wor Gaz to win more headers than just about anyone else in football (look it up) and of course, to score *that goal* ... Madine brings it down, Yates... through his legs!!! Madine, a little kiss on the ball, it's glanced home, just inside the post... YESSSSSSSSSSSS! PRESTON GET BATTERED. EVERYWHERE THEY GO!!!! 

The fight we showed. It's a shame we ended the season with a whimper as it really wasn't typical of our play in general. We started a bit shakily but when we hit our groove we knocked other teams off theirs and though we might not always have achieved a full total football style, we rarely could accused of not going toe to toe with the opposition. All I want to see is a team that tries, ideally with a bit of skill within it. We certainly tried and had moments where that was topped off with a bit of brilliance. 

The less good: Stuff I didn't enjoy as much. 

Really shit performances were rare but... Derby away was like drinking a cold cup of tea that had formed a skin on top. Preston away was like drinking rancid milk that had been warmed up slightly, drunk by someone else and then vomited back into a glass that had old fag butts in it. Whatever Critch says about possession and that and however many injuries we had, it was a rare bit of shite from us... I was spared Peterborough by the early kick off but I think my least favourite game (Preston away aside) was Luton at home, where we didn't play especially badly, but it lashed down icy rain, the wind blew around the stands and Luton just scored three times more than us despite not seeming much better than us.

Other games hurt, stung, frustrated but that's football. You aren't going to win every week, sometimes the ball doesn't bounce for you, losing doesn't always have to prompt an inquest and rage - those three were my low points though. 

Injuries in general and especially Grant Ward getting injured against Bournemouth meant that a) he'd never play for us again, which is a sad thing and b) we really lacked anyone to carry the ball in midfield all season. Kevin Stewart makes glass look positively robust, Matty Virtue was already out. Garbs cut his hair and suddenly became all fragile again... The fact we ended up with Jordan Thorniley... (who Critch palpably doesn't rate but who keeps reappearing anyway because he's the football equivalent of that fucking awful Chumbawumba song or a weeble)... as a pretty key member of the squad after January says it all.  

The midfield is neither brutal nor beautiful: The engine room is energetic. It's honest. It just doesn't have the player who can knit everything together, the play who can spot a pass no one else has seen or make the driving run dragging three players with him. It also lacks the absolute beast who will win every ball or every header. Kenny is fine at what Kenny does, but he's wearing a mantle of 'the best player in midfield' which is not fair. Kev Stewart IS the best player in midfield once or twice every three months or so, which is not enough. I've grown to really like Callum Connolly but he's a player who gives a lot of endeavour and physical effort, a player who will make the other players space and time, but what's the point of that if there isn't the player to take advantage? No midfielders let us down last year, but they all need someone in the squad who can thread, stitch, switch and run. 

Our loan signings weren't up to all that much: Dujon was good, weirdly particularly suited to playing out of position at left back but Tyreese John-Jules was less effective than Ben Woodburn which is a bit like saying comparing standing on lego to standing on a plug. The poor lad just couldn't finish. Actually, he also couldn't really stick to a position or tackle. To be fair, he was good at Bournemouth and against Sunderland in the League cup but he looked like a midtable league 1 kid most of the time and that was a shame because we really needed a player in his mould to meld together technical ability with physical presence. Ryan Wintle was decent to be fair, but when we really needed to keep him, he went back. 

It's difficult in some ways because the Elite Player Performance Plan (or 'plan to ensure the richest clubs get the best kids as I wittily term it') and the financial inequity in football means clubs like us find it difficult to protect our best young assets and then get charged an arm and a leg to loan players back to the league where arguably, they should be already playing. I don't really want us to put all our eggs in the loan basket or stop trying to produce players of our own and giving chances to those who are willing to commit to us properly, but it's also frustrating looking at the quality of some of the signings other clubs around us have made. 

The 'we'll see': Stuff I've not made my mind up on for whatever reason. 

Shayne Lavery was mint at times. Bustling, bristling and fighting for everything. At others, he chased vainly and the ball bounced off him at odd angles. Like Jerry, he had a good run of form and then seemed to go through a long spell where nothing really worked. He scored in three successive games twice but only scored 4 more goals outside of those six matches. I've every faith in him - his touch could be slightly more delicate but he makes terrific runs and he's a player that with a bit more quality in midfield 0 someone who can read those runs  could make him a real nuisance week in, week out. 

Talking of Jerry... Yates has ended the year with the highest number of goal involvements of any of our players, but he looks a bit of a shadow of himself. Where is the sniper from last year? Where are the slaloming runs and little shimmies into space and whip crack shots into the bottom corner? I don't know. I'm sad if that's it for Jerry. He's a delight to watch when he's on form and his touch and vision is tremendous (see Stoke away as the most recent example I can think of) but he just doesn't look confident. I really want him to go again this year and find that strut that he had at his best. Again, we've not really played to his strengths for a lot of the season. Jerry needs the right ball and to work with players running from deep and so on. 

Sonny Carey. I love this kid. He's so classy - he looks like he's got more time on the ball than other players. He is the one player who looked like he could do what I said above we lacked in the middle of the park. He's calm. He likes a shot. He's got a very good shot. He looks way better than his age and experience would suggest he should be.

My question is - where will we play him? He's to me, the ideal player to link the midfield and attack, but we've already seen that Critchley doesn't really use that sort of player very often. To me, the jury isn't out on his ability, more the question of, how do we harness it? The game he played in central midfield away at Huddersfield was probably our best 45 minutes of the season but he only played there because no one else was remotely fit. Would we really see such a technical player as our coach's go to option? I'm not sure. That half of football was (a bit like the Reading away comeback) a glimpse into how we *could* play if we took the brakes off a little. 

Owen Dale has played a few half hour spells where he's looked terrific. A good bit of swagger and a lot of intent. He's also played spells where it looks like his main ability is getting the ball, doing two step overs about 3 yards away from a defender then getting tackled. I don't know which is the real him. Charlie Kirk by contrast is steady as you like. He crosses the ball well. He controls the ball well. He passes to someone else and moves into space. I'm not sure if that's enough. I quite like Kirk and I love the fleeting glimpses of the good Owen Dale, but in a world without Bowler and maybe Keshi, they've got a lot to live up to... (presuming we're not too skint to sign Kirk that is...) 

Bit at the end where I say something that sums it up. 

I really enjoyed this season. Football is wonderful and after all the shite of recent years of all kinds, it was magic to follow so many games and to enjoy the highs and lows. I hope we can recreate the kind of atmosphere and the sorts of followings we brought to grounds around the country. I hope we can balance the structural rebuilding of the club with delivering the goods on the pitch. I hope we can buy and sell well and find that little bit more adventure in our play or at very least, recreate the sort of magic that Bowler and Keshi weaved in moments last year. I hope we've got the pricing right in an increasingly expensive world where more and more people are under pressure financially and football looks increasingly grotesque however we think about it. Football clubs are performing a balancing act in a costly world. So  are their core support. 

Next year will be tough but I hope there's a bit of hope that stays alive at least as long as it did this year, a bit of thrills and skills and last minute delight. I'm sure there will be. Cup run, flirting with the playoffs for a bit longer, someone stepping up we didn't expect, someone new to fall in love with, a midfielder who can pull strings, Keogh finally scoring, whatever it is. I hope the pleasure at least equals the pain. It doesn't always of course. That's what makes it what it is. To make sure things are at least bearable, just keep bunging out Gaz, Jimmy and Richard doing 'group chat' and I'm happy. Or just re-sign Sullay Kaikai... 

However it goes next year, it'll be tangerine and that's enough to make it magical. 

Onward! 

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