Blackpool were in the bottom four of League One even after beating us 3-1 on 8 November to make it seven points from the last nine under the recently appointed Ian Evatt. However such was the nature of their win, we could easily have ended up conceding more than the five we let in recently at Plymouth, I fully expected Blackpool to be well clear of the drop zone when the two sides met again in the return fixture.
Well, Blackpool come here tomorrow still in the bottom four, although they will have the absolutely crucial win over bottom of the table Port Vale on Tuesday when they were twice behind, but eventually came out on top by 3-2 to boost them.
Before that, Blackpool had taken just two points from five matches and, after a good December run when they won five out of six in all competitions, they fell away to such effect after a 5-1 loss at Port Vale when they were reduced to ten men, that they only have three wins from their last fifteen games (sixteen, if you include an FA Cup defeat at Ipswich).
Conceding five against the team that has been bottom of the league for most of the season offers a clue as to why, despite having a squad that is generally reckoned to be a lot better than bottom four standard, the season has turned into a relegation battle for Blackpool. They have the division’s worst defensive record with sixty three goals conceded in their thirty eight matches. For all that, they could have scored a hatful against us at Bloomfield Road, we should have got far more than the one we did score as a combination of some fine saves by Bailey Peacock-Farrell and poor finishing meant we never cashed in on the dominance we had in the first half in particular.
Blackpool have conceded four or more on six occasions in all competitions this season. Furthermore, with us being the division’s leading scorers having netted four times in seven of our matches, while lying second in the table, you’d have thought we should be on for a comfortable win tomorrow.
However, Blackpool will take heart from a couple of things going into the game, first, the fact that they’ve already played well in beating us and, second, our patchy results since the aforesaid loss at Plymouth. I said in my Wycombe reaction piece that I don’t think we lose the game without Gabe Osho’s red card, but the result is there in the record books. It’s now three defeats in our last six with our previously impregnable home form having disappeared with of couple of successive defeats and many saying we looked out our feet against Wycombe. While that’s not a view I necessarily agree with, it’s hard to avoid a feeling that the latest international break can’t come soon enough for us as we should have our two injured strikers back when fixtures resume over Easter.
Onto the quiz, the answers to which will be posted on Sunday.
60s. After leaving Blackpool, he played for Preston, Wrexham, Bradford Park Avenue and Morecambe – when asked whether he felt bitter about only winning a single international cap, he replied “No, I thought I might have been given another chance. But I was not surprised when I was dropped. I just could not get into the match. I think four of the five forwards were making their first, and last, appearances.”. Who is he?
70s. Born in Blackpool, this winger featured pretty regularly for them over a three year period without really establishing himself and so it wasn’t too surprising to see him loaned out to another Lancastrian outfit beginning with the letter B. Eventually released by the Tangerines, he joined another coastal side with sandy beaches close by. Moving on after a couple of seasons he turned up another side on the coast not too far away, but this one had mud flats, as opposed to tourist trap beaches, close by! Here he prospered to the extent that he has been inducted into the club’s Hall of Fame as he was a regular in one of the best teams in the their history. He was loaned out to a landlocked town sixty miles along the motorway towards the end of his career, but can you name him?
80s. Hating law at the start of the Regency, but eventually turning up in Cardiff for a short while. (4,6)
90s. Operator from Cumbria by the sound of it!
00s. Ghost’s aural meeting with the family of former Tory Minister perhaps!
10s. He played for us in the Premier League and was the subject of something of a dispute between City and Blackpool during the following season, who is he?
00s. A meeting between the title character of an old musical and the title character of an ancient medical drama maybe!
