Pool V West Brom

Posted on October 31, 2010
Filed Under Football | 1 Comment

It feels like an eternity since the defeat at Birmingham and the past week hasn’t been the easiest with all the talk about Charlie taking the club to court, and transfer speculation about Gilks and Vaughan. At times like this it’s just best to get focus back on the pitch and Monday’s game should be a cracker.

Last season we were very unlucky to come away with nothing from two games against West Brom, losing both 3-2, both winning goals very dodgy penalty decisions. The away defeat was especially hard to take after we got back into the game thanks to a goal from Brett Ormerod. That time the foul looked out of the area while the home one a great tackle was deemed a foul.

As for our starting line up I’m guessing there will be changes, Harewood dropping to the bench with Grandin back in. If Charlie doesn’t recover from his ankle injury we may see Keith Southern win his first start of the season along side Vaughan and Grandin. Let just hope we can grab our first win at home this season.

A one man team?

Posted on October 25, 2010
Filed Under Blackpool FC, Charlie Adam | Leave a Comment

Not the greatest of results at the weekend and not the greatest of performances. Things just didn’t click, that might have been our tactics, Birmingham’s formation or the players just not turning up. One player who just couldn’t get going was Charlie Adam.

Comparing Adam’s Saturday performance to his master class at Manchester City, he only managed 17 successful passes before going off with an ankle injury.

Vs Manchester City
Total passes 56
Successful passes 49
Successful passes 6
Assists 1

Vs Birmingham
Total passes 19
Successful passes 17
Successful passes 2

He did however manage two shots against Birmingham, one wide and one on target. Against Manchester City he fired three shots wide and one on target which Joe Hart tipped over the bar.

What was interesting is that Birmingham lined up with two upfront, Zigic and O’Conner, with Helb just behind the two thus occupying the space Adam normally operates in. As a result we can see Birmingham won their fair share of tackles in the Blackpool half. O’Conner made 10 tackles winning 3, while Zigic made 9 tackles and won 7.

What we really needed on Saturday was a player to get hold of the ball in the middle, pass it about, make a few runs. Many were calling for the introduction of Grandin. We could have done with Barry Ferguson who made 63 passes, all successful.

After Ollie’s praise for McLeish’s tactics it will be interesting to see if other sides try a similar formation.

Birmingham v Blackpool

Posted on October 23, 2010
Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment

I’ve had a few beers at the wellington on the city at the one at the Cricketers arms and now ready for the match.

Great following by the pool maybe over 3,000. I wad also the featured fan in the match programme. Come on the Pool!

How to beat Birmingham City

Posted on October 22, 2010
Filed Under Blackpool FC | Leave a Comment

If you followed the top flight last year you’ll know that Birmingham City only lost twice last season in the league at home, once to Villa and once to Bolton, 2-1 back in Septemeber 26th 2009 (video). The defeat to Everton at the start of October was the Blue’s first failure  at home in over a year.

Back in September 2008 we picked up an away win at Birmingham in the Championship with a 1-0 win thanks to a goal from Gary Taylor-Fletcher.  So how are we going to pick up three points on Saturday to a team with a pretty good home record?

Using the chalk boards at the Guardian website you can visualise past games, looking at goals, passes, tackles, interceptions etc.

Everton did well to beat Brum a couple of weeks ago, looking at the stats Everton managed to put together a decent amount of passes compared to the home side.

Everton
329 passes - 265 successful - 63 unsuccessful
Birmingham
293 passes - 231 successful - 62 unsuccessful

Compare to our away games

Liverpool
324 passes - 268 successful - 55 unsuccessful
Chelsea
349 passes - 296 successful - 53 unsuccessful
Newcastle
255 passes - 192 successful - 63 unsuccessful
Arsenal
466 passes - 389 successful - 57 unsuccessful
Wigan
277 passes - 220 successful - 54 unsuccessful

Everton had plenty of chance to score, the two shots they did have on target ended with two goals.

Everton Shots V Birmingham

Everton Shots against Birmingham

So two attempts on target, two goals. Both Everton goals came from crosses from the left wing, the 1st turned into his own goal by Johnson and the 2nd a low cross turned in by Cahill.

Interesting both low crosses, with the big back two at Birmingham of Dann and Johnson they will win the majority of high balls in the box. Lets check the stats on that.  Over the past four home games Birmingham tend to win the majority of crosses into the box.

Everton – 8 successful crosses,  14 unsuccessful crosses.
Wigan – 1 successful crosses, 14 unsuccessful crosses.
Liverpool – 4 successful crosses, 17 unsuccessful crosses.
Blackburn – 2 successful crosses, 12 unsuccessful crosses.

So we need to keep the ball (obvious), look at opportunities to score on the break, direct from free kicks,  edge of the area shots, 1 on 1 with the keeper as it doesn’t look like we will win much in the air. Going down the wing then crossing in it’s going to result in much.

So far this season Varney and Taylor-Fletchers starting positions have been very much on the flanks, but not with the view to get to the byline and cross, but to cut in looking for one-two”s on the edge of the area or win the odd penalty.

It will be interesting to see if Marlon Harewood is brought into the starting line up to give us a little more power in the air or continue to try and pass our way to goal.

Check out Up the Pool Blog for more chalk boards on the Pool

Pool 2 – 3 Manchester City

Posted on October 17, 2010
Filed Under Blackpool FC, Charlie Adam, Craig Cathcart, DJ Campbell, Elliot Grandin, Gary Taylor-Fletcher, Ian Evatt, Luke Varney, Marlon Harewood, Matt Gilks | 4 Comments

To have an overriding feeling of disappointment after a 3-2 defeat to Manchester City shows us how far we’ve come and the quality of today’s performance. There’s also an overriding feeling of pride for the team and the club again for matching up to a team that cost over 100 times more and get paid many thousands more. It shows that money isn’t everything.

In the end as one City fan on the train home put it “Silva was the diference…”, which promoted the reply from myself, “yes and the other £300 million pounds worth of players”. That bit of class and ability to get efforts on target proved the difference.

The starting 11 was the same as the Liverpool match with Cathcart and Gilks recovering from knocks. We started really well in the first half but City had the real 1st chance when Gilks tipped a Johnson shot over the top. After that it was a case of us trying and then failing to hit the target with Varney, Adam and Campbell all having great chances test out Hart, who had a great reception on his return.

We carried on in the second period as we had started and could…should…maybe had a goal from Gary Taylor-Fletcher but for a flag happy lino. Watching a couple of times more, it looked like the lino was keeping his flag down until Grandin reached for the ball. That should have been irrelevant as DJ Campbell should had hit the back of the net 1 on 1 with Joe Hart.

Tevez who had been quiet all first half then popped up to flick the opening goal, I’m sure standing a yard off side helped him to get infront of Cathcart. Marlon grabbed the equaliser from a cracking ball in from Charlie Adam, a deserved goal.

Glad All Over had just finished and then Tevez grabbed his second, once again Ian Evatt being fouled / knocked off the ball to loose possession. Thats happened a few too many times now, Fulham’s first goal was the same when he was bundled over in the run up to the goal.

Silva grabbed a great third jinking past two of our defenders and slotted into the far corner giving Gilks no chance, no complaints. Our second made the score reflective of the performance and good to see another goal for Fletch, and assit for Varney.

The initial disappointment tonight should turn to pride over the coming days, we once again impressed and surly won over the neutrals watching on Sky. Hopefully we’ll get some more points on the board next week at Birmingham so we don’t have to look over our shoulders for another week!

Pool V Manchester City – Money Comparison

Posted on October 16, 2010
Filed Under Blackpool FC | Leave a Comment

Coming up on Sunday we play one of the biggest clubs in the world in terms of wealth. For those who don’t know the actual figures here’s some facts that I’ve worked out which shows the massive gap between the two squads.

City’s total squad cost in signing fees around £342,305,000. (See the spreadsheet link below).

In comparision Pool’s squad cost £3,295,000

So around 100 times cheaper, or more expensive depending on the way you look at it.

Most expensive player at City is Carlos Tevez at at estimated £40,000,000. At Blackpool it’s DJ Campbell, again an estimate of £1,500,000. Which means you could buy 26.5 DJ’s for one Carlos Tevez.

Manchester City have 12 players that cost over £15 million. None of the players at Blackpool cost over £15 million, only two players cost more that £1 million at Blackpool.

Yaya Toure gets paid around £221,000 a week. It would take him 15 weeks of wages to buy the entire Blackpool team.

See the spreadsheet for the workings out.

Liverpool 1 – 2 Blackpool FT

Posted on October 3, 2010
Filed Under Blackpool FC, Charlie Adam, Craig Cathcart, DJ Campbell, Elliot Grandin, Gary Taylor-Fletcher, Luke Varney, Matt Gilks | 6 Comments

Wow, we managed to hang on in the second half and take all three points in an amazing afternoon of football at Anfield beating Liverpool 2-1. Yes we beat Liverpool 2-1!!!

Back to a strong line up with Campbell, Varney and GTF upfront, we were set out from the start to attack. The first half we had loads of possession and deserved the two goal lead.

Once again Varney cutting in from the flank won the pen, similar to the Newcastle game, same outcome from the spot from Charlie.

The second was a great breakaway goal with Varney hitting the back of the net. Let’s hope we have a pre agreed fee for him!

Second half Liverpool were always going to come at us, it was a puzzling decision for the foul and disappointing we let them take the kick quickly from which the grabbed one back.

After that the home side huffed and puffed but didn’t really test Gilks too much, bar one effort in injury time. Cole and Ngog ahold have scored with efforts they both put wide.

Soccer - Barclays Premier League - Liverpool v Blackpool - Anfield

We even nearly managed to grab a third on the break. Phillips did well at rightback, as did Keinen. However withs Baps injured and now injuries to Cathcart and Eardley it’s not looking good for our next match.

Once again Mike Jones was appalling as the man in Black. Gerrard, Meireles should have been booked with Kyrgiakos seeing red for a second booking.

Overall a really great day out, great performance and another big step towered survival.

edit : Seasiders podcast about the Liverpool game is live.

Liverpool V Blackpool

Posted on October 3, 2010
Filed Under Blackpool FC, Gary Taylor-Fletcher | 4 Comments

After a weeks holiday in Mexico it’s back to action with a trip to one of the big boys, Liverpool. There’s no doubting the history of the club but currently the team, well the whole club is suffering a downturn in fortunes so it doesn’t seem as big of a match compared to a couple of seasons ago.

Currently third from bottom, winning one and losing two at home this game for some Liverpool fans is seen as a must win for Hodgson’s team. Hodgson has still yet to convince the Liverpool fans with many calling for his head already.

Once again I’ll be just looking forward to a great day out but I do think we’ll grab a goal. For some crazy reason I think a 3-1 win with Gary Taylor-Fletcher grabbing a hattrick.

Much more likely we’ll lose 1-0 with a Gerrard pen given by of crap “homer” referee.