It's a big match. A scrap. A battle. A titanic relegation dogfight. Cliche abounds but I'm too tense to be all arty and pretentious about this one. It's an elephantine occasion. There we are. Some shite.
We need to turn up. We need to turn up. We need to turn up. I'm sick of reflecting on what went wrong and suggesting tweaks to t-t-t-tactics like I'm some kind of cunt who gets paid to state the obvious for the Athletic. Maybe we could try and score more than them? Can I have my fee now?
I don't care what the manager does. I don't care what shape we play. I don't care about game fucking management or compressing the thirds or whether we invert the space between the pockets of half lines.
I just want fight, intent, passion and I don't care how we score or how dirty we have to be or how lucky we have to get, I just want us to win. It's a cold night. Two teams who've been playing like shite. Let's just be less shite than them. For once.
Come on you POOOOOOOOL
See you all on the other side...
---
I. Don't. Understand. The. Line. Up. What is it? Who is playing where? There's loads of jumping about as the ball bounces round. We've come up with a tactic of lobbing it Ollie Turton and hoping CJ running at him scares him. Surprisingly it does a few times. Ollie Turton just moves a bit and that's that outlet closed off. More jumping about. This isn't the finest game I've ever seen but Pool look keen. Gary is doing that running like a maniac for ten minutes thing he does before he has to have sit down. I always feel that whilst it warms the heart, it's not really a long term answer to the question 'who can provide pressing from the front.' That said, if you had a competition to look like a sprinting fridge, Gaz in full flight would be tough to beat.
Maxwell has stretched full length and turned the ball round the post. I think it took a deflection. It was a very good save. Suddenly we're going the other way, The ball into Madine, he plays an angle defying, weighted ball to CJ who cuts it back, Yates cocks the trigger and fires, the ball ricochets off a defender into Carey who is charging forward, it more hits him than he hits it and it squirms inches wide. How did we not score? Will we get any luck? Ever? Carey is tangled up in the net. The ball is gone. The moment is over. Fuck's sake. Breathe out.
C'mon Pool. Oh, what now. WHAT NOW? I'm literally thinking 'the Goode is ok when the ball is in the air, but he makes me worry when he has to chase someone' when I realise, it's not that he's quite as slow as he looked then, but that he's pulled up injured. Terrific. Let's add someone else to the collection of 'footballers no one else wants because they're made of porcelain that we've somehow been persuaded to swap some cash for by a spiv in a dark alley who promises we can take them back if there's a problem but has disappeared into the smog of the night taking our cash with him.'
Sometimes people talk about playground football. Often it's wankers being all macho about how much they can deride people who are about a million times better at football than they ever were or will be. You hear people going 'oh, look at the full back, playground stuff' when a winger skins a player with a brilliant bit of skill, or someone doesn't close down because they're stuck between two men and thus between a rock and a hard place. I really don't want to be like that. But...
The ball goes way up in the air from a sliced clearance. There's a big scramble. We all look a bit nervous. Huddersfield win the ball. They score. It's literally like a fucking playground goal. It's like watching year 8 football - when the players have graduated to a big pitch but haven't grown enough to fill it and they're a bit scared of the ball and the bigger lads win. I hate this season so much.
Nowt happens for ages. It's muted again. I can't remember us having a shot. Suddenly we wake up in injury time and have a go. It's a great 4 minutes that involves some half chances and a bit of fight and... oh for fucks sake. For fucks sake. This is becoming blackly hilarious. Now Gary goals goal machine Madine has got himself sent off for absolutely no fucking reason at all other than being a big mardy arsed petulant get more interested in the scrap with his defender than the bigger picture. I could just go home. Can we just sack this season off? Fucking hell Gary. Not even I can turn this sow's ear into a silk purse. You've let me down, you've let your mam's Pink Floyd vest down. You've let Jimmy Husband and pistachio nuts down but worst of all Gary, worst of.... You know the rest... Go and sit on the sunbed and think about what you've done. McCarthy and TC don't even acknowledge him as he trudges off. The frosty atmosphere is palpable from half a pitch's length away.
---
Lack of discipline, comical defending, failure to make chances, fan favourites left out... Appleton Ou.. Hang on. It's not meant to be like this any more.
C'mon. Moping will do us no good.
---
Rogers is on. Sonny 'possibly the worlds least lucky player' Carey is off. We do ok. We hold our own for 15 minutes. We look marginally more likely than them to break out of the turgid mess that is passing for a game of football. Dougall has a shot that we could describe as 'not bad,' corkscrewing up and over, but drawing an oooooh. The North Stand is magnificent. Jerry is outstanding. He just runs and runs and runs. He's Gaz and he's Jerry in one body. He's running for his own flicks. He's doing the pressing of two players. Maybe Gaz got sent off on purpose just to show the manager that Jerry needs to play up the middle because he's the best all round player we've got?
An hour gone. C'mon Mick... We're losing it. They're making chances. Maxwell saves a near post effort that clearly hurts his hands. They skim one across goal. They run at us and we look alarmed. At one point I hear some ask 'why was Connolly running away then?' It's a fair question. The man next to me declares this 'the worst game of football I think I've ever seen' - it's probably not that, but it's certainly made the nominations list.
Finally... He's electric. He's definitely not a central midfielder, he's possibly a little bit heavier and made of slightly more kebabs than when he left. Ladies and gentleman, here is the man who can't head, can't tackle, doesn't track back and yet, is the best player in the fucking world somehow, it's Josh Bowler!!! On the right wing! Where he belongs!
There's a bit of hope simply at the sight of him. Fun fact - Michael Appleton won more points in the Championship without Bowler in the team than Neil Critchley. I'm not sure that's actually true, but it's close enough to have ring of truth and that's all fake news needs. I'd look it up but it's 11.46, you don't pay me owt and I'm up at 6.30 to go to work. So fucking look it up yourself you lazy get. The point is, for all the bellyaching about this and that, we've missed this lad so much and anyone who says otherwise can't actually have bothered to pay any attention.
I. Don't. Understand. The. Line. Up. What is it? Who is playing where? There's loads of jumping about as the ball bounces round. We've come up with a tactic of lobbing it Ollie Turton and hoping CJ running at him scares him. Surprisingly it does a few times. Ollie Turton just moves a bit and that's that outlet closed off. More jumping about. This isn't the finest game I've ever seen but Pool look keen. Gary is doing that running like a maniac for ten minutes thing he does before he has to have sit down. I always feel that whilst it warms the heart, it's not really a long term answer to the question 'who can provide pressing from the front.' That said, if you had a competition to look like a sprinting fridge, Gaz in full flight would be tough to beat.
Maxwell has stretched full length and turned the ball round the post. I think it took a deflection. It was a very good save. Suddenly we're going the other way, The ball into Madine, he plays an angle defying, weighted ball to CJ who cuts it back, Yates cocks the trigger and fires, the ball ricochets off a defender into Carey who is charging forward, it more hits him than he hits it and it squirms inches wide. How did we not score? Will we get any luck? Ever? Carey is tangled up in the net. The ball is gone. The moment is over. Fuck's sake. Breathe out.
C'mon Pool. Oh, what now. WHAT NOW? I'm literally thinking 'the Goode is ok when the ball is in the air, but he makes me worry when he has to chase someone' when I realise, it's not that he's quite as slow as he looked then, but that he's pulled up injured. Terrific. Let's add someone else to the collection of 'footballers no one else wants because they're made of porcelain that we've somehow been persuaded to swap some cash for by a spiv in a dark alley who promises we can take them back if there's a problem but has disappeared into the smog of the night taking our cash with him.'
Sometimes people talk about playground football. Often it's wankers being all macho about how much they can deride people who are about a million times better at football than they ever were or will be. You hear people going 'oh, look at the full back, playground stuff' when a winger skins a player with a brilliant bit of skill, or someone doesn't close down because they're stuck between two men and thus between a rock and a hard place. I really don't want to be like that. But...
The ball goes way up in the air from a sliced clearance. There's a big scramble. We all look a bit nervous. Huddersfield win the ball. They score. It's literally like a fucking playground goal. It's like watching year 8 football - when the players have graduated to a big pitch but haven't grown enough to fill it and they're a bit scared of the ball and the bigger lads win. I hate this season so much.
Nowt happens for ages. It's muted again. I can't remember us having a shot. Suddenly we wake up in injury time and have a go. It's a great 4 minutes that involves some half chances and a bit of fight and... oh for fucks sake. For fucks sake. This is becoming blackly hilarious. Now Gary goals goal machine Madine has got himself sent off for absolutely no fucking reason at all other than being a big mardy arsed petulant get more interested in the scrap with his defender than the bigger picture. I could just go home. Can we just sack this season off? Fucking hell Gary. Not even I can turn this sow's ear into a silk purse. You've let me down, you've let your mam's Pink Floyd vest down. You've let Jimmy Husband and pistachio nuts down but worst of all Gary, worst of.... You know the rest... Go and sit on the sunbed and think about what you've done. McCarthy and TC don't even acknowledge him as he trudges off. The frosty atmosphere is palpable from half a pitch's length away.
---
Lack of discipline, comical defending, failure to make chances, fan favourites left out... Appleton Ou.. Hang on. It's not meant to be like this any more.
C'mon. Moping will do us no good.
---
Rogers is on. Sonny 'possibly the worlds least lucky player' Carey is off. We do ok. We hold our own for 15 minutes. We look marginally more likely than them to break out of the turgid mess that is passing for a game of football. Dougall has a shot that we could describe as 'not bad,' corkscrewing up and over, but drawing an oooooh. The North Stand is magnificent. Jerry is outstanding. He just runs and runs and runs. He's Gaz and he's Jerry in one body. He's running for his own flicks. He's doing the pressing of two players. Maybe Gaz got sent off on purpose just to show the manager that Jerry needs to play up the middle because he's the best all round player we've got?
An hour gone. C'mon Mick... We're losing it. They're making chances. Maxwell saves a near post effort that clearly hurts his hands. They skim one across goal. They run at us and we look alarmed. At one point I hear some ask 'why was Connolly running away then?' It's a fair question. The man next to me declares this 'the worst game of football I think I've ever seen' - it's probably not that, but it's certainly made the nominations list.
Finally... He's electric. He's definitely not a central midfielder, he's possibly a little bit heavier and made of slightly more kebabs than when he left. Ladies and gentleman, here is the man who can't head, can't tackle, doesn't track back and yet, is the best player in the fucking world somehow, it's Josh Bowler!!! On the right wing! Where he belongs!
There's a bit of hope simply at the sight of him. Fun fact - Michael Appleton won more points in the Championship without Bowler in the team than Neil Critchley. I'm not sure that's actually true, but it's close enough to have ring of truth and that's all fake news needs. I'd look it up but it's 11.46, you don't pay me owt and I'm up at 6.30 to go to work. So fucking look it up yourself you lazy get. The point is, for all the bellyaching about this and that, we've missed this lad so much and anyone who says otherwise can't actually have bothered to pay any attention.
He runs, he stabs it to Jerry, it's too hard. We all sit down. He gets vaguely near the ball. We all stand up. He shies away from the tackle. We all sit down. Just give it to him. It's easier said than done. The ball is ping ponging about. The game is so unsatisfying it resembles what I imagine watching people trying to play football on the deck of a ship in a storm must look like. Mostly it consists of misplaced passes and wrestling with occasional hoofs out of play. Bowler looks lost.
He's got it at last. A lazy turn, a pass, a glide on to the return ball, a cut back, a deflection and then out of nowhere Andy Lyons gallops onto it and smashes a curling, fizzing, beautiful effort into a gorgeously taut net. It's a fucking great moment. Yes, Yes, Yes!!!! YESSSSSSSS!!!! For once. For once this year, we've turned it around and now, lets go and fucking do it. Lets take the game to them. They're going to be petrified. That advantage is ours. C'MON POOL!!!
Remember last week when that Boro lad clipped that beautiful finish just inside the near post and you thought 'well, that won't happen again any time soon?'
He's got it at last. A lazy turn, a pass, a glide on to the return ball, a cut back, a deflection and then out of nowhere Andy Lyons gallops onto it and smashes a curling, fizzing, beautiful effort into a gorgeously taut net. It's a fucking great moment. Yes, Yes, Yes!!!! YESSSSSSSS!!!! For once. For once this year, we've turned it around and now, lets go and fucking do it. Lets take the game to them. They're going to be petrified. That advantage is ours. C'MON POOL!!!
Remember last week when that Boro lad clipped that beautiful finish just inside the near post and you thought 'well, that won't happen again any time soon?'
That fucking happened.
I've actually decided I'm going to watch Morecambe instead. It's cheaper, closer to my house and it won't hurt like this cos I don't give a fuck about Morecambe. To be honest, I'd rather watch that year 8 school team from earlier. Fuck off football. Fuck off Pool. Fuck off the referee who has been awful, stalking around like stick insect, his pale face, pale hair and pale blue shirt giving him the look of some fucking Nazi who started an electropop band with a shit dress code. Dickhead sends off Gaz for throwing a hand and just ignores two equally violent assaults on Husband, about three handballs, one hilarious point where one of our lads got literally lifted up and dumped on the ground and numerous other things I'm too angry to continue writing about...
How are we supposed to get anything when we're playing the referees week on week? Its a fucking conspira.... FUCKING HELL!!!! BOWLER!!!! YES YES YES YES YES! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! Rogers got away, Jerry had a go, it was tired effort, having run about 23 miles, but it broke for Josh who absolutely slammed it home.
I actually love football more than anything. Unreal. Whatever happens. That's the moment we live for. That. Right there. A bit of joy.
I've actually decided I'm going to watch Morecambe instead. It's cheaper, closer to my house and it won't hurt like this cos I don't give a fuck about Morecambe. To be honest, I'd rather watch that year 8 school team from earlier. Fuck off football. Fuck off Pool. Fuck off the referee who has been awful, stalking around like stick insect, his pale face, pale hair and pale blue shirt giving him the look of some fucking Nazi who started an electropop band with a shit dress code. Dickhead sends off Gaz for throwing a hand and just ignores two equally violent assaults on Husband, about three handballs, one hilarious point where one of our lads got literally lifted up and dumped on the ground and numerous other things I'm too angry to continue writing about...
How are we supposed to get anything when we're playing the referees week on week? Its a fucking conspira.... FUCKING HELL!!!! BOWLER!!!! YES YES YES YES YES! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! Rogers got away, Jerry had a go, it was tired effort, having run about 23 miles, but it broke for Josh who absolutely slammed it home.
I actually love football more than anything. Unreal. Whatever happens. That's the moment we live for. That. Right there. A bit of joy.
We love you Blackpool. We do.
---
Maybe the tactics weren't great. (The tactics weren't great) Maybe the same old problems were evident (the same old problems were evident.) Maybe I don't love Gaz any more. (Let's not be too hasty)
The main thing was, as much as it was the same record with a different cover for a lot of the game, actually, the very last bit of the album sounded beautiful. We did come back, we did find a way and whilst a point is not a lot, it's something.
Nelson did ok I thought, though his clearance for the first goal was a bit dicey. Trybull seemed like a player we should have had in summer. Lyons is fantastic. Rogers, I thought was good. He splits opinion. He's like CJ with skills. He's direct. He loses the ball. I think he was clearly more positive than not. Mick must surely now see what Bowler is. Surely. Surely. Surely!
We definitely have some players. We need to use them. It was not, by anyone's definition a vintage performance. A lot of it was distinctly poor - but there was total effort and that double come back must surely give the players a sense of some sort of achievement. It's been a long time since they've felt that and that's what we've got to take into the Rotherham game. There's no point moping and looking at the table. It's no good whining at Mick. He's been here 5 minutes and he's what we've got now, like it or not. We need the same backing every single minute of the rest of the season. It's pointless to do anything else.
Fight and play a bit of football.
Get the wide players into it.
Let them loose.
Take a risk,
Have a shot.
It might just go in.
Onwards!
---
Maybe the tactics weren't great. (The tactics weren't great) Maybe the same old problems were evident (the same old problems were evident.) Maybe I don't love Gaz any more. (Let's not be too hasty)
The main thing was, as much as it was the same record with a different cover for a lot of the game, actually, the very last bit of the album sounded beautiful. We did come back, we did find a way and whilst a point is not a lot, it's something.
Nelson did ok I thought, though his clearance for the first goal was a bit dicey. Trybull seemed like a player we should have had in summer. Lyons is fantastic. Rogers, I thought was good. He splits opinion. He's like CJ with skills. He's direct. He loses the ball. I think he was clearly more positive than not. Mick must surely now see what Bowler is. Surely. Surely. Surely!
We definitely have some players. We need to use them. It was not, by anyone's definition a vintage performance. A lot of it was distinctly poor - but there was total effort and that double come back must surely give the players a sense of some sort of achievement. It's been a long time since they've felt that and that's what we've got to take into the Rotherham game. There's no point moping and looking at the table. It's no good whining at Mick. He's been here 5 minutes and he's what we've got now, like it or not. We need the same backing every single minute of the rest of the season. It's pointless to do anything else.
Fight and play a bit of football.
Get the wide players into it.
Let them loose.
Take a risk,
Have a shot.
It might just go in.
Onwards!
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