Hubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

It’s never easy being a Seasider is it?

Even now, being in the Premier League and playing some superb football, it’s still not easy.

But why? Well this time it’s because we’re such a small fish in a large pond. Oh, and also because of the way the club is run… but then we should be used to that now shouldn’t we?!

Earlier in the week I wrote about how Wayne Rooney’s new contract might impact on the Seasiders, and in his weekly column in The Independent, ‘Pool manager Ian Holloway has once again stated that he may lose Matt Gilks, Stephen Crainey and David Vaughan on free transfers in the summer.

Gilks has been linked with the likes of Arsenal, whilst Crainey has been linked with Wolfsburg!

There’s no question that our players are gaining more attention than ever before and the club need to act quickly to tie our best players down to longer, better contracts because as Ollie admits himself in today’s Independent, losing the likes of David Vaughan on a free and then having to replace him will be a very difficult task.

That aside though, we continue to work to a very tight budget despite our new found riches.

Ollie had great difficulty in signing his targets during the summer, and I expect similar problems come the New Year.

One player the gaffer tried desperately hard to bring in over the summer was Portsmouth striker David Nugent, but the Seasiders failed to agree a deal on his wages with Pompey’s administrators.

Whilst no one wants to see a club go out of business, you can’t help but think that Ollie got excited at the prospect of landing Nugent on a free if Pompey went out of business, which looked a very real prospect last week.

However, they’ve been saved now and it’s back to square one on that front.

As a result it wouldn’t be surprising to see ‘Pool drop their interest in the player and instead target lower cost alternatives; Dundee’s Leigh Griffiths is a name that has been mentioned. The fee? £100,000.

Still, if there’s something we know all too well as ‘Pool fans, it’s that a player’s transfer fee doesn’t determine how good he is (thankfully!).

Onto the big issue though, the hot potato as it were.

On Thursday Charlie Adam will effectively sue the club over what he claims is an unpaid non-relegation bonus.

There’s been a lot of speculation over this story and none of us know the details inside out (least of all the club!).

What I can say with conviction though is that Charlie loves being at Blackpool and wouldn’t be going down this road unless he had a very strong case. Accuse him of money grabbing, but if it’s in his contract, he has every right to chase the money.

That then points to another issue with how the club is run. How can you have such ambiguity in people’s contracts?! Then again it’s typical Oyston isn’t it? Doing everything in a half arsed fashion.

When we got promoted, I spoke of the need for Karl to step through the gears (like the team), but, on the whole, he’s failed. He is pretty much hopeless, and as impartial as Ollie is trying to be he must be seething that Potter is risking losing our captain on a free over a five figure sum.

Then again, he needs the money for his South American stag do doesn’t he? And to think that he was ‘bankrupt’ just a few short weeks ago…