Blackpool THE MATCH

DH would find it near impossible to identify all failings during training sessions.. he needed this game to see the weaknesses in a competitive environment.

I think he will tweak game by game and we'll hopefully start to see us playing as a coherent unit and picking up points.

 

Its fair to say Hopkin has his hands full with this one, it will take a lot time and fans patience to sort this unholy mess out. Grayson thought he could do it, a manager with a proven record at this level, and failed miserably. Hopkin isn't just changing a losing team around, he has to change the whole mentality of the football club, from the fans to the players to the backroom staff. If he succeeds its one of hell of an achievement for the old CV.

 

Always seems to be injured. A result of being physically weak? or just he doesnt go in hard enough for challenges and comes out worse?

 

I never sad he was crap, I certainly dont think he was anywhere near MOTM, until his mistake for the third goal O'Donnell was possibly my MOTM made some very good saves to keep us in the game, I was not aware Wright was injured and no one around us said an injury had forced him off.
At 2-0 up I thought all 3 subs were made for the correct reasons, you can't legislate for a goalkeeping error, we were never in the game so even at 2-2 it was a good result but they were a danger though out with there crosses and high balls into the box, they must have had 5/7 clear cut chances when they got past our defender but thankfull there crossing was poor.

 

Why that ?.

 

I thought he was once again poor and thought that was one of the reasons he got the hook, 2-0 up we needed to hold the ball and make Blackpool chase the game, what did we do launch it every time we got it.
I thought he was poor but some are saying he was injured, in all honesty Blackpol could have had 5 again yesterday.

 

Agree bronco, they should have been 2/3 up at half time and then how they didn’t score when they had it cleared off the line and O’Donnell made that fantastic save!

I don’t think Wright had a massively poor game but like you I thought he had been taken off due to being poor and not injured. O’Brien was certainly the better of the two. He put himself about and wanted the ball.

 

I thought once again the teaveling fans were right behind the team to say they created very little certainly the first half.

 

I agree the goaline clearance and the keepers save were something else, I posted yesterday "its Christmas" when we went 2-0 up and agreed with the subs at the time.
I'm not having a go at Hopkin and I think given time he will turn us around but couldnt believe what I was seeing the first half long ball and the young kid Miller winning very little as you would expect against Tilt, Doyle we know is not the best in the air so 9 times out of 10 the ball was dealt with by the big CDs of Blackpool Tilt making defending look easy.
We go a goal up and start playing balls to feet and gaving the Blackpool defense problems liked the look of Ball, Payne scoring a well worked goal, I thought the O'Brien and Gibson were the corect subs at the time, Gibson was a little unlucky when he had that run through there defense but couldnt get his shot away 3-0 and it was all over, but in all honesty I though the substitution of Wright for O'Brien was because Wright was not having the best of games as much of the game was played in the air cutting out our midfield players.

 

Wright was hobbling off the pitch. He was clearly injured. You must have been countibg Blackpool fans to have missed it.

 

Yes if I'd been dragged off again I'd have been hobbling off, he was poor on the day or should I say on another day because he's hardly been an inspiration in midfield.
He would have got my vote over Akpan but that's hardly a vote of confidence.

 

If allowed he will have to do more than tweak
We need at least 5or 6 more players (with experience) and the current dead wood moving on
A coherent unit is a long way off yet
Would settle for a couple of scrappy draws before breaking the duck and then survival
see what happens when the transfer window opens in January

 

I doubt he would have been subbed had he not got the injury. We were 2-0 up then and not looking in any sort of trouble.
I do note he can clap at over 200 a minute so has some talent.

 

Sorry @Keefly Bantam you asked me if I went to the game yesterday and then make that comment, seriously there was never a period with the 90+ minutes we looked comfortable, so I can't agree with that comment.

 

I thought we were comfortable at 2-0 until the goalkeeping howler in fact Ball hada chance to make 3.the goal lifted them. As I said before I haven’t seen the first half however my son who was there said we were poor. However the second half I thought we were ok and on that half a draw at least would have been fair. And on what I saw Wood looked quite good as well

 

Unfortunately a game is 90minutes + we can't just ignore the first half because we were better the second half, I'd have been very disappointment if we couldn't raise our game from the debacle that was the first half, as I say watch Dmitry's video and see the chances they had and missed as well as our keeper playing well, my MOTM apart from his mistake for their 3rd goal.

 

Very well put buddy.

 

I acknowledged that. But it shows that in the second at least goalkeeper errors excepted we played much better which Is something

 

Did we play much better, or did the fact we were 2-0 up at one point paint over the cracks?

From the statistics, extended highlights, and fan appraisals I've heard, the game was great, our performance wasn't.

 

It sounds like taken the match as a whole we deserve to lose. However based only on what I saw the second half we certainly didn’t