Steve Bruce's 90s football fun house opens its doors once more. It feels like a 'grind it out' sort of day. Steve Bruce is the sort of man who can handle that type of thing though and is inevitably going to lead us to glory...
The weather is a churning mess of grey, black and patches of distant blue that are almost taunting in their opposition to the darkness that is bringing winter showers. It's the solstice today. This is ancient day of festivities. A turning point in the calendar. From here, the only way is up towards light and warmth.
I don't think the ancestors of the Fylde Coast ever celebrated by inviting anyone from Stevenage round to their stone circle though. It might be unfair, it might be snobbery but the name conjures about as much festive excitement as an office Christmas party you have to pay for yourself in a Harvester pub by a roundabout on an industrial estate near a motorway junction. A game against someone else might serve up some kind of pagan ceremony of wild excess, the stands lit against the darkness, the noise and drums bringing a ritual warmth but this... It doesn't really feel magic(k)
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We start pretty well. Ash Fletcher wins some headers! We seem to have a reasonable grip of midfield. We tidy up anything they offer (which is the square root of fuck all) with ease and play in a largely forward directiion.
There are chances. Robbie Apter is away and smacks a shot against the keeper when maybe he should square it. Albie Morgan catches one perfectly after cross from Apter is only scooped to the edge of the box. Kyle Joseph meets a Lee Evans corner square on but instead of making the need bulge, puts the ball the wrong side of the post.
I struggle to recall much else. When the halftime whistle goes, it's fair to say we've been on top but we've not really turned the screw. Stevenage might have had an attack but if so it's slipped from my memory. In previous games against us they've defied my snobbery about their non-club status and been aggressive going forward but in the first half they're just about as anonymous. as you could imagine.
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I hope a bit more happens
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We're out early. They take forever to emerge, presumably having a tactical master class drilled into them at halftime.
They are better second half, but it would have difficult not to be. Not much happens for about 15 minutes other than Harry Tyerr has few unconvincing punches where his technique reminds me of someone trying tentatively to reach something heavy down from a high shelf suspicious that putting to much into the action might bring things crashing onto their head.
We seem to lose the grip we had on the midfield and I start to wonder who is on the bench. It's the kind of game where 10 minutes of a genuinely quality player would probably settle it. If we had Kaddy or some such football genius to pop on we'd be 2-0 up in no time.
We don't.
We do have Jordan Rhodes and your dad remembers him scoring goals so that might work. It almost does, Evans corner, Rhodes near post and a really sharp save by their otherwise comically poor at kicking keeper denies us again.
We have a spell of loads (ok. about three) corners where there's briefly a flurry of atmosphere and a sense of vague anticipation. Soon though, combination of Stevenage adapting to our changed shape and the referee's complete and utter naivety at their high level tactic of 'pretend to be injured every time Blackpool attack' means by about 80 minutes I've all but given up on us scoring.
Every time we seem to be attacking space, the ref whistles and play is called back. It ruins three of our attacks in short order but I suppose the ire towards the officials comes as close to anything else in terms of resembling an atmosphere.
Other 'highlights' of what is a pretty rank half of football include: the ref and lino giving a goal kick for a ball that went out for a throw about 10 yards up the line. Jordan Rhodes being used as target man, something he is resolutely not, Tyrer making a couple of half decent stops from shots you'd expect him to save but you never knows with him, so there's relief, Tyrer joining in with 'you don't know what you're doing' to the ref. Tyree getting booked for questioning why the ref stopped playing for a fourth time when it was Ash Fletcher who got cleaned out, not the Stevenage player who went down as if he'd been the fouled and not the fouler and Lee Evans with a truly naughty challenge that given the shenanigans of Stevenage was quite satisfying.
The game ended, not with a barrage of all out Pool attack but with first, Stevenage suddenly playing some very canny passing football out of nowhere and then a brace of Stevenage corners and what seemed to my eye to be a more than reasonable shout for a Stevenage penalty. Thank fuck it wasn't and thank fuck they didn't sneak one in a the far post when everyone left the ball alone in the absolute dying seconds.
It was a truly dismal game, but that would have been very bitter icing on a very stale cake.
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It almost goes without saying that such a game exposed a lack of quality in the squad. To be fair, defensively, we were pretty sound but baring the earliest part of the game, we didn't really seem able to put our foot on the ball or to be able to dribble round anyone or particularly dominate physically.
Probably Apter looked most likely to create something, but as the game went on, it became more obvious that we only really had that outlet because on the left flank was a striker and both the strikers are relatively similar build and essentially 'nuisance players'
It's been clear for some time (pretty much ever since we landed back in this division) that we need more both variety and more quality. Quality doesn't just mean 'really good all round player like those from off of the Premier League' - it can mean 'being both quite tall and able to head it a bit' or 'being both really nippy and not totally shit with the ball'
I suppose it's positive that we seem to have come up with a functional back 4 (and Penno and Casey were really good today) but in front of it, we definitely need more because we lacked any real point of difference or game changers and as much as Bruce can shuffle it about cleverly at times, you have to sometimes have a player who is just quicker or bigger or technically better than who he's up against and we don't really have many of those.
Mostly, it's positive that that game is over and I don't have to watch it anymore.
Onward...
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