Cursed - the Mighty vs Wycombe Wanders

I'm starting to think that there's very little point or purpose to all this other than some kind of sick joke to amuse the unknown powers behind the universe. There's been a lot of speculation by various civilisations over the years as to why stuff happens and what it all means. Moral codes dictated by oldl Fellas in clouds with beards, zenshit and robes, elephant headed dudes with loads of arms, gods on Greek mountains and all that stuff. I'm not sure any of them are a thing. I don't know... Like a stoned student, I feel like saying 'what if we are all living in a simulation maaaaaan.'???? 

That argument is a logical dead end. It's unprovable. We MIGHT indeed be living in a simulation (maaaan) but there's no way of knowing, so it's not really worth talking about. Put down your spliff, switch off your TV set, do something less boring instead etc. 

Except, I think I've stumbled across the evidence. Whilst post 18th century liberal thinking would have us as all special and unique beings, with complexity and beauty, I think we're literally just numbers. I'm not talking of the mystery of DNA (what is it, where does it come from, why do we go to such lengths to pass it on)  -  I actually think we're all merely the attendance figures generated by a game of Football Manager and 'god' such as they are, is a PNE fan who has decided to tinker with the game editor and subject Blackpool FC to as much painful and tortuous misery as he can this season. There's something so wilfully cruel about the way each paper cut is inflicted that our bleeding out seems like it can't be merely self inflicted. The universe hates us. I do not exist. Reality is a sham. This is probably what I have to tell myself because right now, if they bulldozed the ground and stuck up a Wickes or something instead, it feels like it would probably do my mindset some good overall. 

Half time, I'm sharing a rare bit of (very) cautious optimism. We've not been 'brilliant' or even 'pretty good' - we've been 'alright' (ish) and we've been on top (sort of). The stats are fairly even in terms of chances, but Wycombe's big moments have come largely from our mistakes and we've, for the first time this season, put in a half of football where we've looked vaguely coherent. We've pressured a bit, we've pressed quite well (relative to 'not pressing at all'). We've been in their half more than they've been in our half. It makes some sort of sense to see the players on the pitch in the places they are playing. We've had some crosses! Some passes! We've managed some moves where we retain the ball! We haven't simply panicked and banged it long (well, not every time) Stop the press, tell the world... the Pool are going up etc!!! 

The goal feels loosely speaking, deserved. We don't always make the most of good positions (in fact, we look quite blunt in that regard), but to be honest, for most of the season we've not made good positions at all so lets not get sniffy about 'quality in the final third' because, fuck me, we've got into the final third and that's a start. It's a taken really well by Fletcher (there ain't nobody better, cos they're all in bandages and plaster) from a cute touch on by Bloxham. I'm delighted because this out of form, out of sorts, somewhat patched up side have looked better today and I wanted them to get the reward, to get some confidence and to carry on playing like this. CJ looks good in a wide attacking role. I don't care if we're supposed to damn players by previous performances (I hear someone in the toilets saying 'the keeper is the problem' as if they've not noticed anything else since the first few games) but his movement in a position where he doesn't have to think about defending much is so much better. We bought him to play 433 and we've almost never played it since. The midfield actually has some presence in it as we've got enough players there. We're not overrun. We show a bit of patience. You'll not believe this, but sometimes our players move around a bit and make some space for each other sometimes  - I know! Incredible! It's like watching Brazil. (Ok, it's like watching Brazil who've got their boots on the wrong feet and blindfolds on, but it's at least something starting to resemble a 21st century football team playing to a plan and trying to make it work) 

It looks like the first few bricks of some foundations to me. It's not a row of bricks, it's just one or two - It's not something to build your hopes of champions league glory upon yet, but it's something that a few more bricks could be laid next to rather than just what the rest of the season has been - a big shitty, muddy field full of stagnant water. We've not even dug a trench to put the bricks in to date, let alone laid anything down. Dobs and Blinks have done a bit of spadework. Well done. More and better please, but carry on... 

Why is Banks coming on? I'm scanning the players. Maybe Bloxham - assist aside, he's not really impacted the game... CJ? surely not, he's played pretty well... I can't work it out, but then Tony Parr explains that Albie Morgan is back in the changing room and my heart sinks. This can only be an injury. My whatsapp group speculates and someone points out that Morgan pulled up and stopped running shortly before the end of the half (possibly round the time his awful pass presented them with their best chance) 

We're fucking cursed. We're back to 442 because throwing in Upton is probably too much too soon at this point.

Maybe it will be ok? 

It's not ok. The shallow trench of the first half fills up with water almost straight away. The bricks are submerged by a tide of Wycombe. The mortar and cement dissolves.

I don't want to write about it.

I've written about it before. Read any blog this season. We're overrun, they seem able to, at will, run at us and cut us open. 2 men in midfield isn't enough. The wingers we have are attacking players but they're just spinning hopelessly and air kicking pathetically, lunging fearfully as they're turned into shit defenders. The full backs are exposed. Neither of them have a lot of football this season either. 

Dobbie tries to pump out the water. He takes off Tom 'big dose of night nurse before a match' Bloxham and puts Hansson on wide so Banks can come inside and add an extra body to midfield. This might work - Banks is good, he's got two feet, he can take a pass and we need desperately to get back to parity of numbers. Hansson might be able to break. 

I'd love to pretend it worked - but it doesn't - Banks doesn't look fit at all. He's out of rhythm, the acceleration isn't there. His touch is heavy. Wycombe continue to stream forward, the ref continues to indulge their physical play and to penalise anything we do and our players start to tire. Ashworth has been really good today, his performance making a mockery of Bruce's refusal to consider him an option - but he's a victim of not having played 90 mins (aside from one tinpot cup game a month ago) all year and of having Emil 'blood and thunder' Hansson looking like some fella from a city who has no idea what he's doing in the countryside trying to nervously and ineffectually herd geese ahead of him.  The geese stream past him honking and nipping at him. Hansson looks worried and flaps an arm or a leg hopefully. 

Wycombe force BPF into some very good saves (I wonder if the man in bogs is muttering 'routine' as he he springs from nowhere, arches his back and claws the ball away from the top corner, or chucks an arm out point blank with almost eerie levels of anticipation and deflects it away) Lee Evans (another who I think is good (in terms of effort at least) today, tempting as it is to damn him on past performances) makes an incredible block on the line. 

It's not just that it's all Wycombe - we just don't exist. We're so unfit it's like having about 7 players against 11. 

Dobbie turns to Fraser Horsfall. This is the correct call. There is nothing on the bench that would give us more control. There's two kids and Josh 'just out of bed' Bowler so we might as well try and park the bus at this point. To be fair, I'm not sure whether we have a bus to park, but I'd settle for a largish people carrier and Horsfall is a unit. Ashworth bursts forward and literally runs out of pace... He's shot. Horsfall comes on, CJ goes to left back (the right move as their right winger is fast) and we continue. 

For a few minutes, we look better for it. It's not that we gain a huge amount higher up the pitch, but we're asking Wycombe to work harder to get through us and there's less space for them to exploit as we're able to pick up players more effectively in this set up. Maybe we'll get away with this? 

We don't. There's a horrifying injury to Michael Ihiekwe because, well, of course there is. It's trite and insensitive to try and make light of it for the sake of a shit motif in a shitfanblog, but the fucking PNE fan in charge of our luck is a cunt and is cackling to himself as types in the command. Ihiekwe started the season as our worst player but for the last 5 or 6 games has been our least worst and he's played really well today. He strides across and makes another commanding intervention, but their number 7 does that sneaky, downright dangerous, proper shithouse (as in nasty bastard) leaning forward instead of jumping move and he cartwheels over the top of him and lands awfully, grimly, heavily, worryingly on his head and neck and there's 6 or 7 minutes of medics and physios and neck braces and serious looking stretcher action. It's not nice. 

Theo Upton is on. We change shape for what I think is the 4th time. It's a 4231 I think this time. 

I actually feel sick. I realise I've been clenching my teeth and shoulder and calves since half time. Upton coming on just heightens it all because I want it to work. I want us to bring on a kid, a Blackpool fan at that and see this game out and us to cheer them off at full time and him to feel the moment and there be something to smile about. I wanted us to win before, obviously, but now, I want it all the more... 

There's a magnificent moment where the lad makes a double tackle. There's real aggression in what he does. Lee Evans celebrates the moment with him and Upton doesn't really respond much, he's focussed, he's chasing, he's sprinting - imagine being this lad. Just imagine it...

Imagine your dream coming true... 

Imagine making that tackle, the roar of the crowd around you, being in the centre of the noise you'd been making all your life, the sound that gives you something to belong to, the sound that is your town, your home, your family, imagine knowing you'd prompted it... the seconds ticking down, not able to glance at the clock as you would do as a fan, but focussing on the ball... sheer magic... 

Imagine then, turning as play goes back towards our goal, imagine running helplessly in the direction of the ball, watching as Wycombe waltz past teammates, despairing as the ball is poked into the box, wincing in horror as the player receiving it seems to have all the time in the world, hoping briefly for a BPF miracle but then stopping as the ball hits the back of the net. Imagine the sinking feeling, the impulsive fan reaction to lash out or scream to the heavens. Imagine being on that pitch though, exposed and defenceless as the cold, dissatisfied crowd turn their backs and begin to file out, the angry cries, the grumbling, the disappointment.... Imagine the muted boos at the whistle as you blow out your cheeks and think 'People say football is cruel but nothing prepares you for this...' 

I can't speak. Fuck knows how Theo Upton feels. 

--- 

I can't sum this up as some kind of scoring metric. 'He was good' and 'he was not' and all of that. 

The game has broken me. We're threadbare, we're unfit and we're actually under a hex. Every time we seemed to find a bit of stability, something undermines it. This isn't about 'who should be manager' - but I want Dobbie to do well, regardless of who we appoint, him, Evatt, Bloomfield, Uncle fucking Tom Cobley, Gary Madine ringing up and picking the team from a North East social club after 10 pints of Stella before the strippers come on or the ghosts of Jock Stein and Bill Shankly controlling us through a fucking ouija board  - I like the man, he shows some football intelligence and coaching ability - and he's dealt with 4 injuries that have forced him to change shape in 180 minutes of league football. He's dealing with fatigue in positions we have no back up for. I don't blame him for much, if anything yesterday - every unforced change he made to our shape (starting 433, going to 5 at the back) was undermined by injury - blaming him for enforced changes not working is like blaming a poker player for being dealt a shit hand. Take out Honeyman, Morgan, Imray, Ennis, Coulson, Ihiekwe, Taylor and whoever else I've forgotten and add the fact that what's left has multiple players who are nowhere near 100% 90 minutes fit and the guy is fighting a lost cause. At least I felt as if he fought it, tried things, responded and kept responding - but he's like a man at a knife fight with a broken set of plastic  kids party cutlery. 

In the first half, we weren't outstanding, but we did look a fair degree more coached, we did play a bit of football, we did look at least like a mediocre league 1 side managing to successfully get the better of another one in a typical low quality league 1 game, which, in comparison to the abject mess that went before was an improvement. Right now 'average' isn't to be sniffed at and having achieved something vaguely acceptable (polite applause at half time!) it's soul destroying to watch us unable to replicate it because we physically don't have the players to carry on playing the same way. They didn't not try. Anything but - instead, they broke down or ended up running in treacle. 

I'd honestly give my hind teeth for Ryan Finnigan right now... Not in any world did I imagine saying this 2 months ago. 

I get in the car. I've actually got cramp in my leg from the tension of the second half. I've got to go and be social now with normal people who haven't lived through this. I just want to drink myself into oblivion. I can't. I'm driving. I have to stop in the car park for 5 minutes and give myself a talking to. It's only football MCLF. You enjoy it. It's a distraction.. It's proper lunatic stuff to let yourself actually ruin your evening because of football. I go in... My mate says 'what's up? you look haunted!' - That sums it up. I AM fucking haunted by this fucking club and this affliction of caring about it. It's a ghost, a malevolent poltergeist and I can't shake it off. 

Fucks sake Pool. Fucks sake me. I spent the summer writing jaunty blogs telling Sadler to spend money on Bruce because what could go wrong? Fuck stupid blogger dickheads masquerading as reasoned voices but just spouting abject shit that proves to be way off the mark, fuck football in general, fuck fucking calf injuries, hamstrings, referees, fuck Steve Agnew, Fuck Stephen Clemence, fuck luck, fuck judgement, fuck not planning, fuck not preparing, fuck pre-season, fuck the season, fuck the lot of it. Burn it all down. I can't keep caring so much about this. 

Get an exorcist or something. Find the plug to the computer that runs this hellish simulation and pull it. 

There's always next week...

Onward

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Writing about football is possibly a bit pointless in an era when there's the telly and youtube and videos all over the shop. It's not my living this and it's just something I do because I do so there's no problem with reading it and then getting on with your life - If you do want to chuck some money at the cause of some random fella writing shit no one ever asked him too, then Patreon. is a thing.

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Nadir: the Mighty vs Wimbledon

This was fucking awful... It's so bad that before they've even scored, I'm thinking of a list of things I could have done with my time instead of watching the execrable performance by some sort of poorly drilled half hungover bunch of  timid imposters masquerading as a Blackpool FC team. 

My car needs new tires for example. I could have gone and got those and then, ran over my own foot several times*. I need to do some DIY about the house. I could have gone and bought a nail gun and fired it into my own knees. I need to cook food for the week and I could have done that then placed my fucking head in the oven**

*I don't know how I'd run over my own foot in my own car
**It's an electric oven so don't worry. 

I'm not normally given to hyperbolic statements of negativity - but the actions above would probably have been more pleasurable than the afternoons 'entertainment' at Bloomfield Road.  To try and describe the game seems ridiculous because, there's essentially nothing to describe. That said, a match blog without the match is equally ridiculous, so I'm going to have to try and wade through it. I'd rather wade through dog shit studded with broken glass in my bare feet to be honest, but a blogger without a blog ain't a blogger so let's give it a go. 

---

We started as a 433, an idea I might have quite liked had it not involved Ollie Casey playing (and looking painfully uncomfortable) at right back. Barely anything happened for about 20 minutes. I'm really not exaggerating. Nothing happened of any interest or note. 

What did happen was we played some painfully hopeful balls into the channels and some hopeless long balls up to the front 3 who were Taylor (a technical footballer and definitely not a target man) CJ (pretty shit in the air) and Josh Bowler (who has headed the ball about 5 times in his entire career and that's not really exaggerating very much). Not surprisingly, this wasn't very fruitful. 

Hayden Coulson sat down and Zac Ashworth came on. At least that was something that happened - even if it wasn't the sort of thing you pay to watch, it made a change from us giving the ball back to Wimbledon for a few minutes and watching the players have a drink was about as interesting as watching them play football. 

We then switched to 532 for a while, with Ollie Casey now not so uncomfortable but with us now having Josh Bowler up front, somewhere I've literally never imagined he could play. Nothing happened for ages apart from Bowler trying to slip Taylor through after a nice bit of control and a spin away from his man. It didn't work, but it was the nearest thing you could say resembled a moment of quality. 

I've got to be honest, by the point that Wimbledon scored I was that bored out of my mind that I couldn't get that worked up about whether the penalty was inside or outside the box. Whatever it was, we got cut open and Jordan Brown made a wild challenge because their lad got wrong side of our defence and needed stopping, if not in such a clumsy way... The penalty was dispatched past a static goalkeeper and the clouds felt a little heavier. 

We mustered a feeble Morgan shot after what could be generously described as a nice passing move on the break (the only one of the game I can remember) and a scuffed Jordan Brown shot that went well wide. I shouted "fucking come on Pool, you're fucking better than this" at them, but it didn't seem to have the impact I'd hoped. 

--- 

The football was terrible. The atmosphere non-existent. Wimbledon are nothing special but their fans are noisy and their team committed. I can't believe this is a side with Josh Bowler, Albie Morgan, Dale Taylor, Jordan Brown, Fraser Horsfall and so on. We look languid and totally lacking in imagination. It's been so bad that it can only get better. 

--- 

Now we're playing 442. We've taken off Fraser Horsfall who, for reasons I can't really even begin to understand, seems to be Steve Bruce's version of Neil Critchley's Jordan Thorniley. For want of a right back, we've put Jordan Brown (the best of our midfield in the last few games) at right back, even though, as I've already said, we've literally got an actual right back on the bench. Ash Fletcher is on. It's 442 again. What a surprise. 

Nothing happens for a while. The Kop tries some half hearted 'come on you Pool' and it just sounds sad. This place can be magical and it wasn't so long ago that we sung them home against Huddersfield, but it's just flat, really, really, really lifeless. It's not turned properly either - yes, we're not exactly singing this team to greater heights, but I've seen far more visceral reactions to managers' bad runs and teams playing badly than this. 

At some point Josh Bowler has a shot that is reasonably well, but nonetheless quite comfortably saved by the keeper. We take some awful free kicks. We keep hoping that Taylor will morph into someone who is really grreat at chasing hopeful long balls. We try a few long throws. Nothing remotely approaching passing and movement breaks out. 

Tom Bloxham is warming up and they buy a free kick. I think 'that's exactly what they want' and then, as they launch the ball into the box and end up poking it home as we fail to deal with it, I think 'that's it then' and about 2000 people seem to think the same and file out of the ground as those who remain chant "sacked in the morning" - but even that singing seems to lack the anger it can have. Tom Bloxham comes on and nothing changes.

We continue to be fucking awful and the only thing I can think of that was of any sort of entertainment value was the black comedy of us going from a free kick 25 yards out at their end, to nearly conceding a goal at ours in about 4 seconds, thanks to some piss poor sideways football that gifted them possession with the entire pitch to run into. Well done everyone. 

--- 

I don't think I've effectively put into words how bad we were. In all the time I've been doing this blog, that was as poor a performance as I can remember. Nothing Appleton served up was this bad apart from maybe Rotherham away. Blackburn away under McCarthy stuck in my mind as a game I particularly disliked and Crtichley's last home game was horrific - but I think this was worse than all of them. The first two were away in the Championship and the quality of the opposition was thus much better and the latter, we had the misfortune to face an on song Louie Barry in a really good team. Today, we just played a side (at home) who stuck to a fairly basic plan, who didn't have any players who really shone or looked impossible to contain and didn't do a whole lot themselves and yet, simply by doing some basic things, won comfortably and really didn't ever look like conceding. 

What made it particularly unpalatable was the lack of enjoyment on the pitch. I've rarely seen a side look so out of sorts. The body language was negative. The players looked so fed up with it all. There was no anger, no passion, no energy to any of it. It looked like we just wanted it to be over so the ground could collectively swallow us up. This is not what anyone wants to watch. Football is a game, it's a game we love or loved to play because it's fun and this was no fun at all, for anyone. 

It's pointless running through the individual performances, because collectively, we were dreadful. We were tentative and hesitant with the ball, we lacked movement all game and we were second to everything. I don't think it's possible for any one player to be blamed much more than the next and very difficult for any one player to thrive in the midst of such a performance. In fact, it was way beyond the simple 'he was shit' level - the whole thing was a write off - had it been down to a few mistakes or a particular player's performance, then that would be frustrating, but at least explicable - but today, it all just seemed totally and utterly wrong and sadly, I can't say it's felt 'right' very often this season at all. 

And then... just as I sat down to write this, he was gone. 

I can't say anything other than it is the right decision. Today was fucking horrific - but it's in line with the rest of the season. Pretty much every metric shows we're shit and can't play 442 direct football and for all the words about 'playing attacking football and being unlucky' we haven't been unlucky and we haven't played attacking football and every time we divert from 442 direct football, we just revert to it after 45 minutes anyway, so it doesn't seem as if we're ever going to stop doing what we clearly can't do and I'm not sure how we get out of this tailspin without trying something else properly. 

Steve Bruce is a good man I think. I don't know him, but in his interviews in general and in his manner and from the little I know about his relationships with players, he comes across as a decent human being - but he's the wrong man for this squad and the job of work to be done at this time, because he, and/or the coaching staff he's put his faith in, palpably failed in instilling the basics into this squad. We don't compete, we don't create, we don't look fit. In his last interview, he looks haggard. He clearly has no answers to give. 

Changing managers every ten minutes isn't a recipe for success - but absolutely nothing at all was pointing to triumph or even mere improvement and the performance today was just a slightly more extreme version of what's been happening all year - very little created at all, no sense of cohesion and reliant on breaks (which as Wimbledon had the sense to sit in, weren't on) or a bit of magic from an individual (which never came because it won't happen every week anyway)  - don't create, you invite pressure, invite pressure and you concede goals. 

I have no idea who the right man for the job is. I'm pretty sure it's not most of the people who get named because they're either past their best (most managers do their best work early in their careers), not realistically coming to us or more of the same.

I want to see us take our time and step back from the immediate demands of 'a name' to appease the crowd and to think about what we want and who we want to be. As a football club, I have no idea what our footballing 'identity' is  - whilst 'identity' is a shit word, ultimately, some sort of continuity would be helpful - we seem to go from a to be to c and back again with each appointment. This is costing us, quite literally, as one set of players is unsuitable for the next manager and we rinse and repeat, rebuilding and re-imagining ourselves each time. As it stands, we've got a blank slate because we've just played nearly 25% of a season with no discernable identity and a set of players who absolutely do not fit with what we've been doing and it is thus, the perfect time to step away and decide what we want that style to be because it can't be '90s football based on last ditch central defence and breakways' (and that's for sure) 

I want to see a manager who works hard, who values technical ability, who is willing to take risks, and shows some tactical flexibility and an attacking mindset. I want to see us scour every corner of the globe and listen to every applicant with anything like a semi-serious case to be listened to.

Instead of someone giving it 'one last shot' or 'another roll of the dice' - we need someone who is deeply committed to what should be the chance of a lifetime, someone who desperately needs this break to prove themselves to the world and to themselves. That person needs to have a really clear idea (in fact, several clear ideas) about how they want us to play in different situations and the passion and energy to get them across to the players effectively. 

There's literally thousands and thousands of coaches, assistant managers and managers out there across the globe, and the chance of managing an English football league club is an incredible one. To simply use the contacts book to come up with a name of a mate or a former manager would be appalling when, whether in this country, or in Ireland, Scotland, in Scandinavia, in South America, in the Far East, in Eastern Europe and so on and so on there are so many potential candidates.

Somewhere in amongst them must be someone with the verve, the desire, the footballing intelligence and the force of personality to grab this fucking incredible club by the scruff of its tangerine neck and shake us out of our torpor. If we can't trust ourselves do that and just take a punt on a name, then we've got to look very carefully at the makeup of the leadership within the club because we've got this wrong too many times by grasping at names - we need to go back to the beginning, decide what we want to be and find the best fit, whoever that is - and we have to have the footballing intelligence to do that. It feels like we need to do more than just 'get someone in to win some games' - we need to work out who the fuck we actually are first, because right now, we're nothing, we're noone, we're nowhere and that has to, in part, come from the last 3 or 4 years of jumping from one thing to another with no continuity of style or ethos. 

This has to be the low point for the season. We have to start on Monday with some serious effort at building relationships within the squad, building relationships on the pitch, building some patterns of play, some fitness, some aggression and some confidence in ourselves. In Stephen Dobbie, we have a man I thought was right for the job 2 and bit years ago - I have no idea if he's right for this moment because the world has spun many times since then - but, in terms of coaching and a response to that coaching on the pitch - it can't be much worse than it has been so far this year and if he takes the approach he took last time around and can get them playing with some energy, attacking mindset and some joy in their feet,  then that would be a very big start to the job ahead. 

In Dobs we trust because we must! 

Onward 

You can follow MCLF on facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.

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Writing about football is possibly a bit pointless in an era when there's the telly and youtube and videos all over the shop. It's not my living this and it's just something I do because I do so there's no problem with reading it and then getting on with your life - If you do want to chuck some money at the cause of some random fella writing shit no one ever asked him too, then Patreon. is a thing.

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Capitulation - the Mighty vs Luton Town

I'm driving home (see how I've cunningly I've subverted your expectations, by starting, not just at the end but after the end. There are no rules here. We do what we feel, this is samba, free form football blogging) and Steve Bruce is saying 'we just need a slice-a-luck, the rub of the green, the ball to drop for us' on the car radio. 

He doesn't sound convincing. He doesn't sound convinced. He's been doing this a long time, he tells Ian "you've made your point, now get off" Chisnall, and then he tells him it again. Then again. What we learned, therefore, in several different ways, in case we missed it the first (and the second) time is that we're unlucky according to Steve Bruce and Steve Bruce has been doing this a long time.  Ian "Jeremy Paxman" Chisnall asks Steve "worselves" Bruce such thrusting questions as "when you're down the bottom, that's the luck you get eh Steve?" and Bruce is delighted to bite his question off to answer in the affirmative. 

Perhaps that's good communication. Like saying "442" 3 times before a game, in case the lads get confused and think it's another formation, which it isn't. It's 442. Do your best, keep it tight, don't get in front of the ball too often, don't let them get behind you. Say it all three times. I've been doing this a long time. I'm going for a cup of tea, any questions to Steve or Steve or whatever the other two are called...

Etc. 

I'm wondering to myself though - If we just need a ''slice-a-luck' (that's for sure)' then why are we paying probably the most expensive managerial setup in the club's entire history loads of money? IF football is just this simple - that sometimes the luck is with you, and sometimes it's not, then why bother with all the Steves and the sporting directors to appoint the Steves and the data team to give the data to the Steves for the Steves to ignore (cos fuck me, the data is shite when you look at it and says 'nah, lads, it's not luck, we're actually objectively shit) when actually, you could just get some lucky heather and give the job to Matty Blinkhorn once you've doused him in holy water and we'd be up the league in no time. 

Is it that simple? 

The game. We started really well. It's all relative to the season so far but for the first time in what feels like forever, we actually put a few passes together, pressed a bit and played a bit of football. CJ scored a CJ goal, in that he managed to hit it straight at the keeper but it went through him but no one cares, all goals are great goals but if you don't feel the love when CJ gets something right, then you have no soul and probably would advocate putting dogs and cats stuck in an animal sanctuary down as a 'waste of resources' and probably don't bother with meals, replacing them with those 'huel' drink things because they're 'more time efficient' - CJ is CJ and we're stuck with him and yes, he does CJ things, but sometimes (it doesn't happen all that often I grant you, but it does) he's ace and tonight, he had a good night so fucking enjoy the moment or just accept you are dead inside. Ole! 

Then the curse of Steve Bruce's weirdly misfiring, increasingly shoddy looking 90s football funhouse* struck again. In this respect, we are unlucky. Perhaps the Steves have run over some cats or walked under some ladders or broken some mirrors, but just as Imray collects a ball beautifully, he goes down screaming. It looks to me like an impact injury and worryingly like something snapped in his knee as he lands on his weight bearing leg after leaping for the ball. In such circumstances, it's tempting to bemoan our luck, like we're the ones suffering - but we'll get another right back (in fact, here's Andy Lyons, right now) and Danny Imray has only one career and as Andy Lyons knows, only too well, an injury at the wrong moment can set you back so many years, just as everything seems to be going so well. 

*at this stage, the funhouse is basically just an old garden shed with no windows or door, and a hole in the roof, with just the words "Andrey Canchelskis" (spelled wrong) scribbled in faint crayon on a dirty piece of paper pinned to the wall

We'd knocked it about nicely - Bowler had found a bit of space (and set up the goal), Morgan found runs with cute passes, we'd won some corners and CJ got to the byline and hung a beautiful cross up for Taylor to nod wide - but Imray's injury is a disruption to the rhythm. Luton look really tepid initially, but they warm a bit to their task and get some crosses in. Fortunately they seem to have not packed a striker for their trip away to the seaside, so the crosses are fairly moot. We do nearly concede a very surreal goal, where BPF runs out, tackles a player like an outfielder inside his own box and then everyone sort of just stops until, obligingly Luton hack the ball over the bar. It seemed as if we'd broken down inexplicably. 

We get to half time without great incident and without any of remaining decent players losing a limb or spontaneously combusting. 

--- 

The bar is very low, but I'd say that's the best we've played in terms of moving the ball and moving for each other. It's not like it was the Milan of Gullit, Van Basten etc or anything - but we've looked vaguely competent and Luton have obliged us, by leaving lots of space to break into which suits how we play. 

--- 

Ye gods, CJ has done it again. It's the same goal more or less, with Jordan Brown setting the move away with a great tackle and long pass, Taylor playing the Bowler role and the shot again striking the keeper (but, to be fair, being more confidently placed.) I'll admit freely, I didn't have 'CJ scoring a brace and Blackpool in charge of the game' on my bingo card for this point tonight, but this is the wonder of football. It surprises. It's always the same, but always different. 

At this point (somewhere around an hour) I'm feeling unexpectedly relatively pleased with things - it's not been vintage by anyone's definition, but Casey looks calm, Ihiekwe has suddenly found some form in the last few weeks and looks actually decent, Coulson hasn't been shredded too often by a paper shredder winger so far, Lyons is coping with being chucked in, Jordan Brown looks the best midfielder on the pitch, Bowler has shown some moments of languid quality, Taylor, I actually really like - I know that people expect striker who cost money to score goals and that sort of thing, but I like that he doesn't look that fussed about it - his general play is good, his touch, his weight of pass and so on suits bringing others into play. He seems to have a certain patience about him and there's just a quality to some things he does that feels mature for his age. If we were any good, I think he'd be very good. Maybe this is the loose foundation of a team? 

That's the thing. How you look at it is so coloured by the result at the time and as I'm thinking the above, it looks like we're heading for a comfortable win. We even manage to create a few more half chances, Bowler acrobatically hooks over after more good work from CJ, CJ has a couple of efforts for the hat trick. Luton look shit. A shit team in a shit kit the colour of some kind of watery lime flavoured ice pop. 

Then they suddenly don't look shit and all the optimistic appraisals are in the bin. 

They make some subs. They bring on a couple of tricky lads and a big lad. The big lad reminds me of someone, A kind of pigeon toed, barrel chested someone. He has a certain trot and a certainty in his own presence. He looks for contact with his defender, he's happy playing with his back to goal. Fuck me, I miss Gaz Madine and this lad is the dream we all dream. We all dream of a mobile Gaz Madine and they've got one. We don't have any kind of Gary Madine, mobile or otherwise or even just Kylian Kouassi, because why the fuck would a side with a keeper who can ping it on demand and who play a lot of direct balls need something as frivolous as a physical presence up front? That would be absolutely ridiculous! 

Luton are now a completely different prospect. Their crosses have purpose, our defence is swarming to try and prevent the ball reaching fake Norwegian Madine and that means shape isn't kept. There's space for players to run into. A corner. He heads just wide. 

We make some subs. None of them are what I want to do. Horsfall is a big lad. Why not fight fire with fire? We bring on first Tom Bloxham, who does one really good thing that might have led to CJ's hattrick, then runs about like he's been challenged in the dressing room to perform the game in the manner of someone humping bags of wet sand on his shoulders. In contrast to their new striker, he doesn't seek contact with his centre half and barring that one initial run, he doesn't pull players to him. rather seeks space. He needs to learn how to play this role or we need to use him differently because he's talented, but this is pointless cos he just can't play off long balls and centre forwards in teams like this need to be able to. 

Then they score. It's deflected (there's the luck that you can only see if you've been in the game as long as Steve Bruce) and a bit against the run of play if you look across the half, but it's not against the run of the most recent 5 minutes, which has been increasing Luton pressure. 

We make more subs. Now we'll see Horsfall. We don't. Instead we get Emil Hansson, who, being the weight of breath of wind and about the height of a milk bottle seems unlikely to nullify them as well as Lee Evans who is brilliant at pointing and having a huff at his own players, but again, when I last checked, not really likely to disrupt a side playing around a target man very much as he's not a) central defender or b) very good at running about when nippy lads are doing stuff. When I last checked, Horsfall was one of the best defenders in League 1 and we'd outbid Stockport (who are reasonably minted) for his contract - so it seems, to be quite frank, really fucking weird that he never, ever comes on, even when there's a threat that looks absolutely made for him to deal with. 

What follows is a bit like what happens if you put an ice sculpture on top of a fire. What previously looked to have some shape and form, just melts into a puddle. It's a shame filled pool of piss from a child who has been bullied to the point of terror. We look frightened, we can't get hold of the ball, we twat it away, we twat it into the stand, we try and run with it but get nowhere and Luton press. They press with quite a lot of patience and move the ball, trying to work the angle. They manage to fizz it across the face of goal a few times, they force BPF into a few punches and a good claim, they work the defenders, they force some blocks. It's not like they're hitting the woodwork or forcing double finger tip saves every 30 seconds - but it's relentless and we look rattled and lost. 

Then more of that bad luck that only 45 years of footballing experience allows you spot. Never mind the relentless pressure. They get a penalty. Just a random event that has nothing to do with allowing them to play in our half and on the edge of our box pretty much at will. I don't know if it's a penalty or not. The big lad flicks it on, a little lad and Casey come together with some force. It's hard to tell who upends who. I don't write this to be definitive - watch it, make your own mind up, I don't know. It's given and after some scuffling in the box between Albie and some lads twice his size, it's dispatched and the brief bit of optimism I felt half an hour before now feels foolish.  

They end the game on top.

For fucks' sake 'Pool. 

---

Before the game, I honestly struggled to find any optimism. We've been rank bad this year - yes, we've had a half here or there where we've matched the opposition - but we've never really looked dominant and we seem to treat matching other league 1 teams for a bit as a sign of some kind of earth shaking progress as if we're not a side who stated the ambition of promotion at the outset, but a plucky set of chancers in a league of giants.

We didn't 'dominate tonight, but there were points in the game where we played well enough and seemed to have the measure of Luton. I quite enjoyed the novelty of us scoring and having a few attacks! What we failed to do, in any way shape or form, was react to a side changing their shape and trying a different approach. We also wilted visibly in the face of a side who were clearly fit and able to play hard up to the final whistle - we just fell into two banks and sat deep and invited pressure, like a little dog, backing off nervously and barking, but never biting, looking sluggish and weak in comparison. 

I like some of these players as individuals and actually, my assessment of their potential isn't that different to what I felt on an hour - There's palpable ability in them - but collectively, we're just not playing well at all and even tonight, where we managed a few more shots than some previous games, we didn't really create an overwhelming amount and both goals were breakaways. There's nothing wrong with a breakaway goal - but we've not scored a single 'well worked' goal that has come as a result of collective team play, movement, a spell of pressure, this season. In fact, (a fun fact even,) CJ's brace tonight represents literally 50% of our goals from open play this year. 

Maybe Luton were lucky with the penalty (I genuinely don't know) but we were lucky on several occasions where balls across the box just didn't find a foot or a head, or when a Luton player leaned back in the first half and blazed it over.  Maybe being in football management for a long time teaches you that when that happens, it's not good luck but brilliant judgement by you and the coaching staff. Maybe having XG of less than 1 for game after game after game (and by far the lowest overall in the division) is bad luck, but when you score from a mishit shot the keeper should save, it's not 'good luck' but a master stroke. 

I thought we played ok for a bit tonight - but this is the problem - we need points. We need wins. Not 'signs' that we're 'getting there' - We need to move up the table, fast. The Steve Bruce Experiment is utterly pointless unless we're doing well and we're really not. It doesn't lay groundwork for anything, it's not some imaginative ideas that are being slowly picked up by the squad - it's a veteran manager playing simple football, based on withstanding pressure and hitting on the break. It's simple enough stuff and it's not working. It worked a bit tonight, but then it didn't work. It didn't work when everyone was fit any more than it has worked with injuries. It's worked for the odd moment here and there this year, but overall, it's so far from working convincingly it's actually painful to think about. 

Onward

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Writing about football is possibly a bit pointless in an era when there's the telly and youtube and videos all over the shop. It's not my living this and it's just something I do because I do so there's no problem with reading it and then getting on with your life - If you do want to chuck some money at the cause of some random fella writing shit no one ever asked him too, then Patreon. is a thing.

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What a difference a goal makes...: the Mighty vs Barnsley

The sky is grey. The rain is endless. It's like being in Bladerunner only without as much neon and a few less flying cars. I love days like this. The bowl of the stadium wraps round you and it's like there's nothing else beyond it, just an unrendered void. It's like an uncanny unfinished depiction of a location in a computer game, everything in the immediate crystal clear, but outside of that, just a strange fog. Even the tower is rendered hazy and indistinct, the very top of it disappearing into the murk.

I don't know why Horsfall doesn't play, I don't know why Bloxham isn't worth a place on the bench. I do like that Banks and Bowler start and Ennis and Fletcher are reunited. I'm not sure how I feel about Morgan and Honeyman as the midfield pairing. It's probably the best technically, but we've not made much use of technical qualities of late and it's very small and I feel like they're very similar players. We shall see.

---

The game starts with an immediate feel of intensity in comparison to Tuesday. Barnsley look well organised and technically able. Possession changes hands and straight away a pattern is established that last the length of the first half, we knock a couple of hopeful balls forward for Ennis to try and sniff out, whereas they bring the ball down and play some joined up football, finding particular joy in threading it behind our full backs for their overlapping wing backs, a route that seems to work on both sides and brings them their first chance, a sharp near post effort that is uncomfortably close and as with so many goals we've conceded this year, worryingly easy to create. 

We claim our first chance and it comes from some great vision from Bowler to find the man in space and ends with a Scott Banks shot being well blocked and a Pool corner. Barnsley respond with another crisp move, 1,2,3 passes slice us open on our right and then a good cross and there's only a great Coulson tackle between them and a goal. Pool answer back with another pointless long ball, then a great Imray run that comes to nothing in the end, followed by another good Imray run that is partially snuffed out, but sees the ball balloon up, then be shifted wide to Banks, who sees the gap, adjusts himself well and with a low drive, draws a very good save from Cooper.

Their keeper has very little to do, but what he does, he does well. His touch is sensational for a goalkeeper - a couple of times he kills a ball stone dead with his feet and another time, he uses his chest to cushion the ball with deftness that puts some of the forward play to shame. 

As the half wears on (and it does wear, this isn't a vintage Pool performance) I become more frustrated with the strategy of 'get ball, pass it a couple of times and then lump it forward and give it away' - from one of these moment, a completely aimless ball lands with the Tykes who immediately return it to the heart of our box, Coulson, for no explicable reason cuts it out when it was clearly headed for BPF and turns an attempt at defending into a perfect lay off for Bansley shot. A few minutes later, equally inexplicably, as we're just starting to form a break, he makes a square pass to the wrong team that they shank wide. We get away with a few to be honest, where they should test BPF but don't. 

I've started counting the aimless balls forward and I'm up to eight. Another one is flung down the line, that's nine. Then we chip it up towards Ennis, but without giving him anything to run onto - ten. Then another one over the top that runs out of play... eleven. Each time we're just giving the ball back to the other team. 

Bowler has looked off it. Whilst he's neat and tidy in his passing, he's distinctly more 'underwhelming cheap battery from B+M' than mains electric danger.  The acceleration isn't there as he tries to wriggle through a couple of times without success. At one point, late in the half, a burst of acceleration sees him limping and clutching the back of his leg and everything screams 'player who hasn't played a lot for ages feeling the effects of playing' and all the excitement and hype seems foolish. He plays on though but he doesn't seem to move freely thereafter to me. 

--- 

We've been poor. As so often this year, we've sat really deep and let Barnsley control the game - they've got up the pitch with ease and though they haven't turned their dominance into many clear cut chances, they've hit the heart of our box quite frequently and been in what Neil Critchley would term 'good areas' a lot more than us. We've been wasteful in possession and our attempts to play have been quite pitiful in comparison to what has seemed like a much more sophisticated awareness of movement and team shape/position in the Barnsley ranks. We need to be better. 

---

We are better - the second half sees a reversal in the pattern of the game. Whilst we don't exactly come out imbued by the collective spirit of Johan Cruyff, we're definitely more joined up and crucially, we don't sit so deep. Barnsley find it harder to play the neat triangles from earlier as their attempts to pass and move are more aggressively disrupted and this half, it is them who seem to resort more often to the aimless pass and us who possess a bit more purpose about our play. 

Chances though, are hard to come by - we make something at the near post that is snuffed out before the most exciting passage of play in the game, a helter skelter 15 seconds of chaos in which, Ennis gets desperately blocked at the far post by a combination of keeper and defender - the latter goes down injured, but we play on. The ball is put back in, Fletcher wins it, but appears to be having his shirt pulled as he does... finally the ball is back with Ennis, his touch is heavy, but he remains in possession, until the still prone Tykes defender hooks out a leg from on floor which, if he wins the ball, seems to go through Ennis to do so and the Kop screams for a penalty with some conviction. Shit refs again. Ole ole. 

What else did we create? I'm struggling a bit. We played 'better' in that we were no longer sitting ducks for Barnsley attacks but we weren't exactly ripping into them either. Albie had a shot from the edge of the box which forced a routine save. BPF nearly put us through with some good vision from his kicks a couple of times. At some point Ihiekwe got underneath a header from a corner that a player behind him might have got over - but neither side was looking hugely dangerous.

Probably more notable than the chances were the injuries and general fitness. Bowler went off and I guess today was one of those games he'll need several of to get back to fitness. If, on Tuesday, he moved freely and with a baletic grace reminiscent of his glory period, today he looked heavy legged. More troublingly, Honeyman sits down and immediately signals to the bench and then, after a tackle, Scott Banks is helped off, limping and struggling to put weight on one leg. Given Banks has a history of injury troubles and definitely has displayed some much needed quality and guile in what we've seen so far of him, the latter worries me most. 

For Barnsley, David Mcgoldrick really stood out, knitting their play together and drifting into pockets of space. Late in the game, his movement saw him receive it twice in the same move and then, just dally a touch too long in his lay off which meant a moment extra for us to close down and Peacock Farrell to make the angle and in the end an easy save. He's withdrawn moments later and it feels like once he's off, Barnsley aren't quite as joined up. 

The rain has continued to pour down, the pitch is wet, the play is quite full blooded which is always a certain kind of pleasure - but it isn't really feeling like out and out chaos - more a series of disrupted moves and two sides deadlocked. 

By now, the board has gone up for injury time and I'm starting to think about how to write this up. I don't generally stand there thinking 'what am I going to say about this?' because that's not how I want to roll -, I'm there for the game not the writing, usually I just see what's in my head after the game and go with that - but today, there's not a lot there to distract me so I'm starting to compile a list of things that are equally as dull as watching us this season - a wallpaper catalogue, Keir Starmer telling a 'funny' anecdote, listening to a HR induction talk... 

... we have a corner, the Kop roars in anticipation but I'm not feeling it. I don't believe today. This is 0-0, it has 0-0 written all over it in indelible ink, 0-0 is fucking tattooed on this game, branded into its very flesh with red hot metal, chiseled into the granite of the thing,... the list goes on... washing the car, going shopping for shit boring household things, putting the ironing away, which is even shitter than ironing itself... the corner comes in, it's headed away, I knew it. The thing is, when you watch enough football, you can feel a game. It's wisdom, it comes with age and experience... we're not scoring today... being on a bus that takes a lot longer than the journey would in a car, bad phone signal, filling in a poorly designed form on a council website... CJ goes to chase the lost cause. The Kop screams for a foul that isn't given - it's too late anyway, it's just not happening... milky tea that isn't strong enough, undercooked chips that haven't crisped up, traffic jams in general, but especially when created by poorly timed temporary lights...

...but maybe, I actually can't read a game and maybe, I know fuck all because... 

CJ has got up, CJ is running, his, left foot guiding the ball like a hockey stick, he's still going... a pass into the box, it's held up by someone (Olly Casey it turns out) and laid off and... oh my, I can see this before it happens, there's a gap in the bottom left corner and I know Jordan Brown has seen it from the way he shapes as he runs onto it and the list is now changing to be a very different one, the rush of blood as you launch yourself from a great height, the feeling as you clock off on a Friday with the weekend ahead of you, the moment where a cold pint hits your lips on a hot, hot day... the strike is crisp, the strike is low, it seems to bend as it skims the turf, the keeper has spotted it later than Brown and is diving, but he's never reaching it, as the ball flies, the intake of breath is collective and as the ball hits the net, the release, the roar, the sheer fucking disbelief and joy is tremendous. Players hurl themselves towards to crowd, there are hashtagscenes and hashtaglimbs and shirts off and goalkeepers running up the pitch and even Steve Bruce allows himself a little clenched fist jig and the fella next to me thumps me in delight and I thump the air and the tangle of bodies, leaping and thrashing arms and flags in the Kop goes on and everything is good as the rain washes everything in a dreamy haze... 

The whistle. Players leap into each other's arms. That clearly lifted them as much as it lifted us. 

--- 

I don't know what to make of this game in the context of the overall. We were better defensively and I thought Coulson had a particularly good second half. For all he was culpable in the first half of loose play, he was aggressive, dominant even in the second half. The centre back pairing looked as good as it has all season and Imray was again the best player on the pitch. BPF's kicking was strong and at times in the second half he looked as valid a creative outlet as anyone. 

Going forward though, I thought we again struggled. We did get higher in the second half, but given the talent on the pitch, we didn't really make anyone particularly shine in an attacking sense. Banks' injury worries me as he looks the most likely to get a shot away and we do seem still to be very much about one of two things - either, catching a defender out with a direct ball for Ennis to turn onto or a moment of individual skill - a run from a wide player. There's still little sign of the convincing fluid team play that you'd feel a promotion chasing team (and we are still 22nd!) would need to have in their locker. 

Confidence though, is everything. Confidence can be the difference between timid and brave, between safety and risk. You could see at the end the sheer relief of the players. Whilst this was still far from convincing display of all out total football, the reaction to the win and the obdurate defending wasn't the sign of a side who have given up on each other or who don't care. We've shown we can shut an OK side out (and Barnsley are certainly nowhere near the worst teams in the league) and grind out a result - that doesn't make a season - but it certainly is a positive in comparison to previous weeks. 

Win next week and we could be 15th. Truly nosebleed stuff. 

Onward

You can follow MCLF on facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.

Home-Start Blackpool Food Bank

Writing about football is possibly a bit pointless in an era when there's the telly and youtube and videos all over the shop. It's not my living this and it's just something I do because I do so there's no problem with reading it and then getting on with your life - If you do want to chuck some money at the cause of some random fella writing shit no one ever asked him too, then Patreon. is a thing.

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Some straws to clutch? - the Mighty vs Barrow

Lets be very clear - anything I write has to be consumed with a healthy side portion of 'it's only Barrow reserves in a glorified friendly' flavoured scepticism - but let's also be clear. This blog is nothing but an attempt to write about the experience of supporting a football team who often aren't very good at football and if you can't enjoy winning 5-0 and watching some (relative to the diet of grim, grey gruel we've been served to date) enjoyable and (again, relatively speaking) inventive football, then this isn't the blog for you and you can fuck off and read something else. 

Yes, you may well say 'MCLF, you hollow eyed spectre at the feast, in the last blog, you were telling us there was nothing to cling to and the numbers (the sacred data, behold the pressing stats, fall at the feet of heat map and grovel ye mere minion) told a story of abject misery, it's a bit rich to now claim you're some kind of chronicler of joy and bringer of light - isn't the truth that you flip back and forward according to whatever has just happened in manner of one of the slightly threadbare St George's Crosses attached to the Bloomfield Road lamp posts whipping around in the changeable pre-match wind this evening?' 

To which, I'd say, yes, guilty as charged. Being a football fan is thus. One week your down, the next week your up. I could find no straws to clutch at, I have found a hay bail tonight and you are going to chew on the straw because it's my fucking blog and I'll say whatever I like. Just wait till we get to point 5. If you're already annoyed, you'll be apoplectic by then... 

I'm not going through the game in some kind of weird and frankly wholly unnecessary detail like I normally do cos I'm too tired and it's the tinpot cup. Watch the highlights. Some stuff happened. Mostly it was fine. The first goal was lucky and gifted to us, though Fletch did well and Banks was sharp, the second CJ pulled out the cross of his life and Fletcher scored the kind of header I wish he'd score more of, Bowler set up one with a lovely spin and pass and Scott Banks scored with a simply brilliant finish. There was another goal but I've forgotten how that happened. As I say, watch the highlights. They're free. 

(This isn't a very good advert for blogging is it?) 

Actually, I've remembered it - it was Andy Lyon's heading home from a cross in a way he did so well for us and it was a really nice moment as Lyons has had a horrible time over a sustained period after making such a promising start. He's suffered personal loss, he's had a horrific injury and neither Critchley or Bruce seem to rate him very highly. In fact, Lyons is probably just about the only person in Blackpool who pines for the days of Mad Mick because since then, it's been rubbish for him all round and that goal was the one I cheered most on an evening of fairly sedate reactions. The fact Tony Parr then awarded it to Fraser Horsfall just about summed up Andy Lyons lot at the moment. He did ok tonight and the game will do both him and Zac Ashworth, (who played well and provided some balance to the centre of defence) no harm at all. I hope Bruce hasn't written both of them off, because both of them have something to offer, not least in respect of being the right shape pegs for the holes we may sometimes have. (The keeper too, had very little to do, but looked perfectly competent and certainly less jittery than he had in preseason.)

What I do want to do is pick out how tonight differed from previous games (aside from the obvious fact we were playing Barrow reserves in a glorified friendly, in case you've forgotten what I said about 4 paragraphs ago) 

1: Horsfall carries the ball out and sets up attacks - I really liked what I saw from him in this respect. For the first ten minutes of the game, he looked rusty. He looked like he needed calibrating and he shanked a really poor square pass and totally mistimed a tackle. Then, it was like he got his eye in and I thought he looked composed and crucially, vocal at times. What I particularly liked (and to be honest, hadn't expected from a 'big unit' centre half) was that he was keen to receive the ball, and when he got it, drove forward without hesitation - something which linked the defence and midfield well and made us far less prone to going back to front. Having a player at the back willing to advance 30 yards into the other teams half makes a big difference to the ability of others to then run off them and where the move starts from. 

2: Having wide players in wide positions - Emil Hansson missed chances he should have scored (and also nearly scored with a lovely run and low backlift shot in the second half, which would have been a glorious goal) - but he was dangerous in a way that Morgan or Honeyman haven't been when playing wide. Scott Banks was rightly man of the match for what was a really good all round performance - he played on both flanks, but also showed himself adept at playing up alongside the strikers in a kind of impromptu front 3. He's got the ability to use both feet and to go inside or outside. As much as Bowler's cameo was eye catching (more in a moment) Banks looked perfectly capable of slotting into this side and adding something that hasn't been there - a bit of craft and guile and positional fluidity. 

3: Josh Bowler coming on in the tinpot cup against a threadbare League Two side shouldn't really happen. Rightfully, we should be bringing on some academy kid that we'll all say encouraging and hopeful things about but will next be seen playing for Droylsden Town. Again, in case you are really hellbent on ignoring my prior instructions, we were only playing Barrow reserves, but the Bowler who played that 20 or so minutes looks a more rounded player than the Bowler I remember - maybe it's tactical freedom, maybe it's just the opposition weren't very good, but far from hugging the right touchline and sprinting, this Bowler wandered and found pockets of space, drifted and tried to (and indeed did) slip players in and provided a glorious reminder of ⚡WHY HE'S SO FUCKING EXCITING⚡ when he took the ball down on the turn and fairly lashed an effort that (in my mind at least) hit both the post and the bar (but might actually have only hit one of them. It seemed to happen so quickly. If the fact on Saturday he dribbled in his own box and lost the ball and we nearly conceded reminded me of one side of Bowler, that moment reminded me why I'll forgive him pretty much anything because it was a flash of a player from a totally different footballing universe as 99% of Blackpool players I've ever watched. When he's good, he's fucking sublime. 

4: There was a general sense of both desire and enjoyment. We were 5-0 up and we kept looking for the next goal. Taylor looked involved in a way he hasn't in some games and his goal seemed to breath some life into him, Evans wasn't immaculate by any means, but he prompted and spread play and provided a bit of willingness to look up and use the width and Jordan Brown gave us some midfield control - yes, obviously, one more time, in the context you'd expect it - but we actually had a midfield. We knocked it about well, we had some movement and we looked at times like a team who actually had some collective confidence in each other. One moment we played out from the back was actually really nice football and something that, yes, is easy at 4-0 up, but also something I've seen no evidence we'd have had the belief to try up to this point. 

5: This one is a scary prospect. I don't really want to commit to paper because it might make it happen again and the idea is just so wrong it's ridiculous. I'm going to say it though... 

CJ was actually ok at left back 

This is a ridiculous statement to make because if Hayden Coulson isn't a left back then CJ is definitely not - but he, tonight, (yes for fucks sake, do I have to keep saying it, with all the required caveats applied yet again and multiplied by several factors,) he actually was pretty effective. CJ needs the ball in front of him and running from deep, he got it, multiple times in a way he hasn't had on the wing. Barrow didn't offer very much going the other way, but his athleticism (the one attribute you can't deny he possesses) was also useful in getting him back. CJ is quick over longer distances, not an explosive accelerator and repeatedly he'd surge from deep to overlap Hansson and actually, this was the most use he's been on a football pitch for ages as we weren't asking him to be a 'midfield creator' but a runner who, through his runs would create space for others to play and an extra option as opposed to being the key point in the attack. And yes, it was Barrow reserves and yes, a better team might rip him to bits and yes, he's CJ Hamilton and all of that - but you can only say what you see (Roy) and that is what I saw. 

To conclude, Bruce made a strong statement in picking a very strong 18 for the game. This was a bit of no win match - play as we did (pretty convincingly) and you can't say anything other than 'well, we *should* be pretty convincing against a rejigged low budget League 2 side in terrible form' and that's fair. What we achieved tonight was no better than par for the course. It wasn't all roses either - we looked worryingly vulnerable from set pieces - I thought we looked reasonably compact in open play, but at least 3 or 4 times set pieces caused what seemed like unreasonable panic. This is definitely not just a case of bodies or individuals - because that seems a pattern no matter who is in the side. 

What it did achieve was showing what a few players could do and making a few cases for Saturday. If anything, it felt a bit like the preseason game we never had - a pretty routine dispatching of a side below our level, but with some encouraging elements and some actual football played. We never had that game in what was a disrupted and quite unsatisfying build up to what has been a shockingly poor start so who knows, maybe that little bit of belief will develop as a result of this game where, no there wasn't the same pressure - but nonetheless there was a certain expectation and something to prove - to each other on the pitch perhaps as much as to anyone else. 

It also showed what I think we already know - we possess some players who are capable of moments of magic and whose skills are beyond doubt. Bowler and Banks both provided moments which were such quality they seemed pretty much unsporting in the context of the opposition and the competition - whilst wingers alone can't fix the entire structure of the team, the understanding that we have quality and if we get the ball to that quality, the can hurt teams is an important one for the team to have. If you've got a player who can cut inside and shoot or can drift and slip a clever pass - then it encourages the rest to maybe be a bit more careful with the passes, to maybe not go back to front every time. Essentially, teams need to believe in the team - and the mavericks, the 'luxuries' as some might term them can ignite that because they can change games. They become the reason to tackle, the reason to run, the reason to block shots and so on - because with them, you always have a chance...  

I think the best way to sum it up is - I only really went tonight because I was that fed up that I wanted to either see some hope, or see it all fall apart and move on. After the game, I can't get carried away as if everything that's been wrong will magically be right - but I'm now looking forward to Saturday and to seeing if Banks and Bowler can look as effortlessly dangerous as tonight against a better side and if Horsfall can slot in a provide some of the drive from back to front and if we can get the balance right and look a legitimately competitive side in our division in a way we haven't really looked yet. There is at least some hope that we can be better than we've been and that, for what it's worth is pretty much all I've subsisted on for most of the last 30 odd years of going to Bloomfield Road, of listening to us on transistor radios, of checking live text under the table at family events, of trekking off in the car to shit towns when I could be doing something more worthwhile. It's the same for any of us. If we knew what would happen next, it would be shit. We live in hope and whilst when the future arrives, it is often disappointing, but from the perspective of now, it's always the future and always unknown and always contains possibilities. The world is as yet unmade and to give up on that and the idea that tomorrow might bring us something better than today would be to give up on life. 

Fuck me, that's a pretentious ending and possibly the most overblown way to describe 'feeling slightly better about Barnsley at home' that anyone has ever come up with. I blame Josh Bowler. He has this effect on me. 

Onward

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