Maybe I should grow up.
Perhaps I should reflect on the fact I'm numb to pretty much everything else and that football is the only place I actually allow myself to let go and emote. Why's that then? Is it me? Is it the world? Famine *shrug* The world heading towards inescapable calamity based on a heady mix of late era capitalism, environmental chaos and apathy *shit happens* Jordan Thorniley not getting a contract offer... WHAT THE FUCK??? SOMEONE SHOULD DO SOMETHING!
Maybe I should think about how starting a blog with some slightly odd and very off topic psychoanalysis isn't recommended in any of those shit 'How to make a success of blogging' guides.
Then again, are any of them the third best (of three) Blackpool FC based blog currently available online?
No.
They can fuck themselves with their recommendations to 'keep it pithy' and 'include content that the reader can digest quickly. Remember, your aim is numbers, so don't fall into the trap of long posts no one will reach the end of'
I didn't get where I am today (on my couch in a house that is falling down a bit with a squeaky, creaky ten year old car outside) by following advice about being successful and achieving stuff.
I might start life coaching.
Kev's at a loose end. We could be a double act.
New season. Same shite. Anyway. You don't not pay me to write with discipline do you?
Mike Garritty is back. This is terrific news. Why? Many reasons. Such as... Critch is quite softly spoken. He needs Mike Garritty to shout stuff. Mike's main job last time was to make sure Jerry didn't drink any of those big cans of energy drink that look like beer cans before getting on the bus for away trips and to make sure the players didn't get lost when they stopped for a wee at the services. He's a key part in the Critchsaw (that's like jigsaw, but consists of bits and pieces Neil needs to put together to build a dream team.)
Ian Brunskill joins them. I don't know what Ian Brunskill does. I don't believe Ian Brunskill is actually who he says he is. To me, he has the vibe of a man who went bankrupt setting up a hipster coffee bar with some money from questionable sources but overspent on lavish interior decorations and thus the project never reached opening day and sat in a partially finished state for months, with whitewashed windows testament to a broken dream. That's maybe unfair. I like to think he's in charge of diagrams and has lovely penmanship. I imagine he uses those wedge end flipchart/whiteboard markers and writes the players names in kind of calligraphy style. Which is a good skillset and nice to have around.
Who needs playing experience eh?
Systematically building a side is back. Gone is the 'lets loan anyone we can get our hands on and have the maximum number of flimsy ball players that all play in the same position that the laws of physics will allow' approach of last season. I'm confident I can assess this as an expert because on Football Manager it was always wise to get your defence sorted and make sure you have a bit of leadership and experience before bringing in the flair players.
We've bought a old goalie who looks like Gaz who just needs to not be a disruptive influence because mostly, he'll sit on the bench and remind people of Gaz, a defender who is decent, a midfielder who might be a little bit creative and could become decent in the discipline of a Crutch project, and a midfielder who is actually decent already.
We likely need a left back, some width, perhaps a striker and to replace anyone who leaves. Grimmy is a good keeper, Lyons and Gabriel are very good right backs, Pennington and Marv are very good centre halves, Connolly, Trybull, Dougall, Norwood, Morgan, Virtue and Carey offers a blend of midfield ability that crucially, combines some experience with some potential creativity and Yates (for now at least,) Lavery and Beesley aren't a bad combination if YTS Madine/Junior John Murphy can stay fit.
At left back, Husband or Thompson could be mashed together into one player if we can find an experimental facility willing to overlook the ethical quibbles. I love Jimbo but he's had a patchy fitness record and never quite nailed down a place/position permanently. I think he's my club captain and the ideal capable back up for a couple of positions. Thommo is an interesting case. He's got attributes but he needs to harness them better. If Critch can get into his head, he could be decent. If he can't, he'll be gone. Neither of them scream 'nailed on first choice.' We could play Lyons there but in a battle of statements 'he's fucking right footed and a permanently inverted full back is mentalism' beats 'he played there for Shamrock Rovers' for me. Maybe I'm just old school.
Wide, we've only really got Owen 'plays like Messi once every 15 games' Dale and CJ 'splits opinion' Hamilton. Again, you feel if you could combine their attributes, you'd have both an incredible player and an interesting legal precedent. I think both can play a part but neither I'd want to rely on to do the job that Kaikai in 20/21 or Bowler/Keshi in 21/22 did. Pace is always useful and Dale may yet find some consistent form but CJ is CJ and Dale just doesn't have the burst of speed you'd associate with a consistently devastating winger. I could be wrong. Apter is the most likely youth player to step up and I've liked what I've seen of him a lot. I think he'll get minutes (in fact, if he doesn't, I'd question why we've bothered with all the youth set up at all) but again, expecting him to perform week in week out seems a stretch. I think bringing in some quality width is key, especially as Critchley will usually set up with two combative midfielders and tends to allow more freedom to the wide men than he does to his central players.
Up front, it's probably dreaming to think Jerry stays. Sad as it is, Jerry has nothing to prove anymore. He's better than us now. Lavery is a very handy player to have with Yates' likely departure and we shouldn't forget that Critch preferred his bustling style to Jerry's more nuanced approach numerous times. I can't make my mind up about Beesley. It's not fair to judge him on a couple of out of position games in an out of form side last season and I liked his style in the few flashes we saw the season before. I'm just not sure he's got the singular presence of Madine - who like him or not, was as essential to us as Bowler because, like Bowler, he was one of the few players who could be relied on to usually be the best player on the pitch at something (winning aerial balls was as handy in its own way as Bowler's dribbling or Marvin's last ditch tackles)
I suspect we'll see a slight evolution of Critchball. I can't see us going to get a new Madine (i.e. any new striker will be less good at one thing but better at a wider range of things) and instead, I think we're likely to see more of a 3 man midfield with Carey or Morgan breaking to support the striker. I hope we do anyway. The movement and forward thinking style that Dobbie brought at the end of the season was both pleasing on the eye and made us look quite potent and though personnel has changed, I'd love to see us give something like that a go.
Carey needs to play that more forward role to be the player I believe he is. He needs two ball winners behind him and a striker/wide players that will move around him and to be told to play football. I think we might see a totally different beast from the lad chasing shadows in a lost cause last year if we use him thus.
I think if I summed up the squad, it would be that we look to have a core of admirable and relatively experienced players to do the dirty work. We're lacking a bit of magic. We're like a lighter without the flint, like a bomb without the charge.
That's almost the polar opposite of last year where we had loads of dynamite but nothing to pack it in. We were like a box of fireworks left out in the rain. For all the explosive potential we had, we didn't offer that ability the right conditions to thrive and thus, we rarely exploded into life.
We've lost Bowler, Anderson, Fiorini, Rogers, Patino and Poveda. That's a hell of a lot of technical quality and whilst not all those players always reached their potential, I'm not sure we've got anything like that ability through the door yet. If we add the likely loss of Yates, who is as technically brilliant as anyone in that list above, then I really hope we're scouring the earth for some proper players.
You absolutely need your Callum Connolly and your Matty Virtue. These types of player are essential. Graft and fight are a must. The name 'luxury player' is a total misnomer though. We don't get promoted without Kaikai. We don't stay up without Bowler. You need the flighty, skillful genius who drifts in and out as well as the passion and playing for the badge and all that because otherwise, who are your ball winners winning the ball for? What is the fight going to achieve other than a fight? Skill, surprise and instinct are not luxuries. They're the difference.
I'm not one for making demands like 'if we don't go up, it's a disgrace' - football is football is football. It's got a wonderful habit of destroying expectations and churning up the best laid plans. What I hope to see quite quickly, is a Blackpool side that play in the way we looked to play towards the end of the last promotion campaign where we balanced a very tight defence with a greater degree of intent than earlier in the season. We were well drilled and also capable of improvisation. Critchley is working from a significantly better base (in terms of having his own players) than when he walked through the door in 2020 so it seems reasonably fair to say he should be able to get us going quicker than last time around.
I can feel the anticipation building. It all feels a bit, well, competent. It all feels as if there's a plan again. I might be projecting the memory of previous deeds onto the present day situation but for all a big part of me didn't want to go back to Critchley, now we have, I can't help but also recall how diligent, studious and focussed he is and the way his softly spoken, carefully worded manner masks an ice cold determination to win. I can't help but think about how he's got the brains to play a long game, to adapt what he does and to improve players.
I think Critchley is extremely fortunate to be here in the sense that, a) Sadler could have told him to sling his hook and b) at no other club would he have the platform he has. 15 of the squad know him inside out. He's already done a good deal of the work in instilling his ethos. Appleton didn't have that. McCarthy didn't have that. Critchley at QPR didn't have that either. It's not easy to make a bunch of lads you don't know into a high functioning football unit and with the exception of Thompson and Trybull, Critchley knows or had a hand in signing every single player (Lyons was in the works when he was chatting to Stevie G(angster) on his burner phone in the bogs and fibbing to Mike that it was Janine who kept ringing him...)
I also suspect Critchley knows the above and will be even more thorough and determined than his day to day default meticulous attention to detail. My main hope is that he remembers that sometimes, a bit of freedom and joy is how you get the best out of players. A tactical masterclass is grand, but at times, you have to risk losing a little to win big.
I've nothing against the idea of a coaching team with no real football experience but I do think that it's possible to over coach a squad and I hope they find the balance. It's obviously bollocks to say that Calderwood or McCall were the real power behind the throne, but I really hope that someone in the coaching team has the instinctive ability to empathise with the players and occasionally steer a decision based on that. Data, planning and sport science are all essential but so is 'feel' and 'instinct' - the two are often presented as opposites - like it's a culture war between long ball, pie and chips, ten pints of lager, builders brew football and huel fueled, beard stroking, Ecuadorian coffee drinkimg, laptop lapsang suchong football.
The simple truth is, it's all a blend. Sometimes you need someone to put their foot through it. Other times you need to retain possession. Sometimes the dossier of data will unlock the opposition, other times it will weigh down the players with too much information. Sometimes you can release a player with detailed video analysis and training programme that addresses their weaknesses and other times, it's the word you have in their ear at the right time that makes them believe.
I think one of Critchley's most elite qualities is his ability to run a team - and that includes the management group. I just hope he has the right mix of voices with the right blend of perspectives. There's no meaningful playing experience amongst the coaches and there's no Keogh, Madine, Maxwell type figures either. It's not to say he hasn't got the right mix, but equally, that's the bit where I feel a degree of caution to my otherwise surprisingly unbridled optimism.
A few weeks off has been good. Relegation is shit but only dickhead sky sports wankers turn their nose up at the prospect of a fight for promotion in this league. Fuck off and watch City and talk about 'next level exploitation of the dynamic half space' or something if you can't accept it. Football isn't actually all that different between the leagues and what hurt about last season was most of the teams we played were a bit shit.
The default Championship side we played against was compact, good at winning the ball, strong and physical and often a bit shit at doing anything with possession. We just didn't compete in the middle of the pitch cos we were a bunch of waifs. That's what it boils down to. I don't recall seeing many feasts of football and most, if not all the sides who impressed me got promoted or came close. There was a load of shit in that league and yeah, that means going down is shite, but it also means there's not loads to miss either.
The average opposition in this league might be a fraction more industrial or a bit more rugged but it wasn't as if the championship was filled with sided who looked like Honved circa 1950 or 1970s Ajax was it? We're not going to be sadly filing out saying "oh, it's nice to win, but I just wish we could marvel at the footballing elegance of Hull City one more time" are we?
In conclusion. Bring it on. Next season is the first step to winning the World Club Championship in 2027/28. Sonny is going to set the league on fire and that keeper will turn out to be the actual Gaz really and head us to glory from a Charle 'disguises his genius with a cloak of mundane averageness in the way a pigeon's beauty gets lost amidst their ubiquitous familiarity 'Kirk (our inevitable future) cross.
Put your house on it*
Onward!
*For fucks sake, don't!
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