If only the season could have stopped after Preston and Coventry? Imagine how you'd feel? 3 weeks of basking in a couple of great wins, a free scoring side creating chances for fun, results improving on the back of a run of half decent performances. A manager banishing doubts by vanquishing his former employees in a hail of goals. Hell, the lad could even fist pumped us then and we'd probably have responded with glee.
Instead, everything fell apart. I can't even pick the games from each other. A sludgy puddle of listless, mistake ridden, yes luckless but also often lifeless dreck. Building tension and boos. A manager castigated and catcalled. Unrest and anger abounding. Folded arms. Thousand yard stares. Hands on hips. Embarrassed teapots. Players trudging off to the dressing room. Subs benches full of players on the naughty step and pitches full of tired limbs.
The break comes as a relief. There's only so much you can take from going over the same problems. Sometimes it's best just to step away. The team is running on empty. A core of players stretched to the limits, mostly admirable souls who have given plenty for the cause over the years running on loose sand dunes, stumbling through game after game, desperate for a foothold. Every time they seemed to be ascending a summit, a sandslip, a calamity, an injustice and they land, face down, exhausted, defeated, embarrassed, ashamed. They need to regather, they need to recharge. They need to find a belief again.
The World Cup has been a buffer. It's insulated us from our turmoil but now it moves through the gears, accelerating towards its end, thoughts turn back to us. Can we turn this round?
Lets see...
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| Grimmy reflecting on being dropped...? |
Appleton should accept that bringing back Maxwell hasn't had the desired effect - it wasn't a stupid idea - the defence (we'll get onto that shortly) did initially appear to benefit from the more experienced man marshalling things and Grimmy, whilst a fantastic keeper, did look befuddled at times by the need to pass it around at the back - the problem is, as much as Maxwell is better at the short game and pointing at stuff, Grimmy is better at actually saving things and his general command of angles and positions is remarkably consistent. The younger man does have things to learn and work on - but he's got a considerably higher ceiling and is, well, younger. Neither really command their box, but one of them is just starting out and thus can develop his game - whilst the other has had his ways formed by a decade of first team football. I'm never going to join the 'Maxwell is the second coming of Satan' bandwagon - but Grimmy needs to go back in. Now.
Defensively, we're a shambles. There's no dressing it up Jordan Thorniley can hold his recently concussed head high but we've looked a right mess. We miss Keogh obviously, but really, the problem isn't him leaving. He was becoming increasingly injury prone and more relevantly, we've also changed the way we play. Not replacing him with a player with some similar attributes was a crime - but I think, much as I love crazy Uncle Richard, I can really only imagine him limping off several times looking sad this year.
The most frustrating but also fundamentally solid aspect of Critchball was his insistence on packing the midfield with defensively minded central players - this restricted our creativity but it also meant that Marvin and co almost always had an easy out ball (and often several options) because our midfield's main purpose was to shield and to stay deep to receive. In short, we're now asking more of the same players and Marvin has struggled to adapt to a more expansive definition of 'centre back.'
The full backs have also struggled. Husband has done very little other than be injured. He's been quite good when he's played, but that's been a rare occurrence so his qualities have really been a moot point. Luke Garbutt's one appearance resembled a lad dragged out of retirement and that's meant we've been reliant on Dom Thompson's deep unpredictability. It concerns me that we've got 3 left backs and none of them (for different reasons) could be described as 'reliable.' At right back, Gabriel has also been conspicuous by his absence and we've thus been dependent on Connolly. Connolly can absolutely be described as 'reliable' but I'm far from convinced that right back gets the best out of him. We've been in dire need of someone to crunch into tackles and mix it in midfield and Connolly is the nearest we have to an enforcer - he had some tremendous games there last year (and his aerial prowess is useful in midfield and making late runs into the box), whereas at right back he's essentially plugging a gap - in that position he's more old school stopper than flying wing back and it's probably the latter that we really need in order to make our chosen formation work.
The absolute priority in January is a central defender with presence and some footballing ability. We need a taller, louder right footed Jud basically. We've not just lost Keogh, but we've also lost a large part of what makes Marvin magic to a maelstrom of misjudgements and too many times our downfall has been self imposed. Lyons gives us another option at fullback but we still look weak there, but I have more faith in either Husband getting fit or Thompson finding some consistency than I do the shakiness in central defence magically resolving itself - Thorniley, Williams and Ekpiteta out of form simply doesn't contain enough quality to be the foundation of the team and on performance throughout the season, it's got to be Thorniley plus one.
Midfield is our strength - or, at least, had we had any semblance of luck this year, it should be. Appleton rightly identified the stodgy nature of our central options as problematic and addressed it with some theoretically decent players. The problem is, those players have largely been injured or unavailable to play in that position. Considering that for several games, we had almost no one to play, it's mind blowing to think we have the following players under contract who can play in central midfield: Patino, Fiorini, Carey, Anderson, Dougall, Wright, Stewart, Bridcutt, Connolly, Ward and the on loan Virtue. That's up to 11 players for 3 slots in the starting 11 and on paper, there's some genuine quality in that list.
I really like what Appleton is *trying* to do - I like the idea of a midfield that has attack as its prime function - Objectively, the previous manager did a very good job, but it was absolutely apparent that there was a limit to what we could achieve playing a safety first game predicated on individual flair. Appleton has tried (with limited success) to build a team whereby the opposition needs to consider 6 of our players as an attacking threat (possibly 8 if we got full backs involved) instead of just 'sitting on Bowler and watching us flail hopelessly when he's closed down' - It has worked at times, but far more often it hasn't - here, though, I feel a lot more sympathy for him than I do for our defensive woes.
We lost the two bright young Premier League stars to injury just at the point (QPR away) we seemed to click into gear. We lost the best young player (Carey) to suspension immediately afterwards. Keshi got sat on in training then exploded the moment he came back. Wright looked really good for about an hour and then appeared to forget how to play football completely thereafter. Just about the only midfielder we've been able to rely on throughout the season has been Kenny Dougall and whilst King Kenny has many qualities, the 5 above are very different players to him. If we can get those players fit and firing (and Carey has been excellent in recent weeks, adding a combative edge to has game) then we should be a lot stronger.
If we can perm 2 from 5 attacking talents, we should also be able to balance that with 1 from 4 more defensive minds. I know it seems absurd, but it's just possible that the positive thinking property magnate (Kevin 'lets gooo' Stewart' might play again. He might. He's really fucking good. If he wasn't, his absences wouldn't piss everyone off so much. Failing that, Bridcutt has made us look better when he's not been injured. Dougall is an ever ready willing runner and Callum Connolly released from right back would give us presence. The frustration is - we clearly need a player to play the anchor role and dictate the game and/or to break up play and makes things hard for the opposition and we've got 2 or 3 players who really should be perfect for that role but are never available to play it.
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| Gary Madine 22-23 |
Up front, we've got 3 players I think are adequate. Jerry has been fantastic. There's no other way to describe him. He's scored goals, worked hard, linked play and been an absolute model. Lavery has taken a bit longer to adapt to the wide role, but he's increasingly looking comfortable charging up and down. He's not as technically adept as Jerry but he compensates for that with a brute physicality and directness that I find really hard not to like. Gary Madine should not be the point of focus for a technical 433 but whatever it says on paper, he is, and as at every point of his Blackpool career - apart from the league one run in - we look worse without him. He's evolved his game, he's run himself into the ground and he's definitely got a big role to continue playing but he can't be the only option. It's just not humane.
The problem up front isn't those three. It's that that's all we've got. We can hope Jake Beesley can give a bit of relief to Madine (and indeed, hope that his greater mobility is a useful attribute) but out wide, the cupboard is bare. Poveda has thus far looked to be a shit Rob Apter - it's hard to imagine Apter having less impact than the lad whose name isn't pronounced 'Ian' and Theo, whilst managing some neat finishes and crazy runs, simply can't do the job that Yates or Lavery does. CJ is definitely the least worst option and that really does show how we've failed to improve the attacking options - In fact, when we factor in the loss of Josh Bowler - a player who seemed to be really benefiting from being released from the strictures of Critchball - the options seem considerably poorer. Had we got any quality wide, we could play Yates in the middle (or, for that matter, Lavery) - we managed to put together a convincing Gaz free 3 when Bowler was there, but without him, it's been pointless. A little bit like Connolly, Yates and Lavery both have been forced to play roles that possibly aren't their optimum ones (or at least, having the freedom to vary their role might benefit us)
We have to therefore do the following:
Put Grimmy in. Get a reliable, experienced centre back who isn't scared of the ball. Pray for the fitness of the potentially pretty good midfield. Get a wide forward who has a brain in his head. Very possibly we're a decent fullback light too.
I still like the theory behind it all - but we desperately need to see more in practice and much more often - It's not simply down to the manager - we need to back up the plan with some elements that will make it work and get some key transfer moves right. We need to sort out the perpetual injury crisis that's plagued us since League 1. We need some signings that actually IMPROVE the squad, not just add bodies. We've stretched the League 1 team to the point of absurdity and they're still largely the best players at the club.
I want to see far less football that I'm not sure how to describe. We've totally lacked any plan B and whilst the luck has been horrible, at times the judgement has been lacking too. We have fleetingly shown fluidity and flair but the flip side has been formless football.
We'll go again and I want to see us double down on the attacking intent. It might be suicide, but the slow death of percentage football could be just as miserable. We just don't have the squad to switch to another way of playing but we're sorely lacking in some key areas in terms of playing the way we want to. I think we need less investment to improve at what we're trying to do than we need to play a totally different style. To me, it makes more sense to try and put the pieces in the jigsaw that are missing, than to throw away the box at a time where it's very difficult to put together a whole new approach.
For better or worse...
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