The first game of a first pre season for Simon Grayson and it didn’t go too badly! No Clarke, Wiles or Doughty, but the management tried to give everyone a fair crack of the whip against our cod happy rivals. A 2-0 win not important really, but it’s always nice to win, although the main exercise was for players to gain fitness and match practice. Blackpool fielded a strong line up, with Evans, Jackson, Joseph, Teirney, Bean and Forbes all starting. The 4-4-2 formation was complete with Slater (a trialist), Kay, Another trialist (first name Wes, second name Hoolahan)with Patterson and Blinkhorn playing up front. Michael Jackson was skipper for the day (well, the firts half anyway) but was caught ball watching several times in the opening stages which hopefully was just rust, hopefully. However, ‘Pool had the better of the opening encounters with centre midfielder Marcus Bean shooting wide after neat build up work. Young striker Matty Blinkhorn wasted two oppurtunities with the scores still level. Fleetwood did have a spell, when Rhys Evans was sent scrambling down to his right only to see the ball go wide. After a third chance for Blinkhorn, ‘pool opened the scoring when Adrian Forbes latched onto a Marc Joseph through ball and finished comfortably in the corner. At the break, 1-0 to the visitors.
Simon ‘Sven’ Grayson fiddled about with the team for the second half with Jones, Burns, Fox, Donnelly, Coid, Vernon, Southern and Parker replacing Evans, Tierney, Joseph, Bean, Forbes, the ineffective Kay, Blinkhorn and Patterson. Giving everyone a run out, fair enough. Vernon, just having come on, provided for Keigan Parker to nod home the second. Vernon himself should have bagged one, but fired wide after good work by Wes Hoolahan and Burns. The two trialists then came off to be replaced by Rory Rent-a-ghost and Sean Clancy. Now for the substitution that had most around me bermused. Simon Grayson came on for Michael Jackson, due to the lack of defensive cover. But, cynics say he was trying to keep in shape ahead of his masters football for Leicester next week, which was later confirmed by the manager. I thought Jackson should have stayed on, but it was only 15 minutes, so was fairly irrelevant.
Blackpool edged it, and did Ok for their first game of pre season. Cod, that was good. I fully enjoyed the game, and it was much better than some dross that has been dished out by ‘pool in recent friendlies in past seasons.
Manager Rating
Simon Grayson – Got it just about spot on with his subsitutes.
Women And Football…
I learnt today they do not mix!! Frequent references towards players legs is not my kind of thing, and I would like to warn anyone going to any football match with a female, do not stand next to any dugouts! I was wise to it in the second half however, we stood as far away from the players as possible!! Nice thinking, eh?
