Saturday saw Blackpool lose their third successive game and their second successive home game since last year which saw them fall further behind the front-runners in League One.
City came into the game on the back of a penalty shoot-out defeat to Middlesbrough in the FA Cup mid-week, whereas ‘Pool suffered almost the same fate, going out in extra time to Championship side Norwich.
“Bristol City changed their system and played with a spare man in midfield and for the first 15 minutes, full credit to them, they created some chances.” Said manager Simon Grayson. A very valid point as ‘Pool failed to create anything meaningful in the opening exchanges with the Bristol players closing down and harrying our most creative players, in my opinion, David Fox and Wes Hoolahan.
“We came back and at times totally dominated and created chances of our own” most notably in fact, the first 8 minutes of the second half until we were caught on the break and conceded – it has to be said – a rather sloppy goal defence-wise.
“Like the last game against Brentford, their ‘keeper [Basso] made some excellent saves.” in particular Keigan Parker’s chance in the first half, left footed from the edge of the area which very nearly crept into the top left hand corner from the ‘Keeper’s prospective.
Larry refused to lay blame on Rhys Evans for the goal that cost Blackpool the game – despite rushing out to the edge of his 18 yard box when Paul Tierney was covering the attacker; “As for their goal, I can’t say whether it is down to Rhys Evans – I can’t comment on that until I look at a replay.”
Blackpool’s home form has now dipped in the last 3 games – a draw against Norwich and losses against strugglers Brentford (3-1) and of course promotion chasing Bristol City (1-0).
Grayson described it as “disappointing” to have such a magnificent run come to an end and now lose two games on the trot at ‘Fortress’ Bloomfield Road *despite there only being half of it..wink wink*
“We were never going to keep up that sort of run until the end of the season anyway. There are going to be a lot of twists and turns to come in the division before the end of the season and results that you don’t expect, like Nottingham Forest losing to Brighton”
Nottingham Forest are ‘Pool’s opponents tomorrow [tuesday] night in Nottingham and Blackpool will be looking to bounce back from this ‘poor form’ so many have been branding it with..but lets face it, it’s only two losses in an already fantastic season. Even if we lost out on the playoffs, it is still a fantastic achievement to go from relegation battlers on the last day of the season to promotion chasers in one season.
Kudos to Mr. Grayson and the players for that.
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For the first time I will say Larry has lost it in the changing room.
Info recieved to day I have shared with a few.
Larry has lost it. The respect may have gone. I hope not. How he can regain it after the recent developments I dont know.
And some of his statements are at best questionable, eg the 4 quality strikers line!
Despite my usual pesemistic streak I think i’m gonna wait before I pass judgement on these quite obviously prat-like comments til i get to see the lads tomorrow, seeing as its only a 30 min drive from mine. But if we play like donkeys i’m afraid its knives out. Everytime I’ve been back up to the road this year we’ve done the goods (apart from against rotherham) but I’ve always had the sneaking feeling it had SFA to do with Larry, he seems a down to earth bloke, don’t get me wrong, and a good man to have in the dressing room but tactically and selection wise I think he’s beyond lacking. But heres to him proving me wrong!