Blackpool Match Report

Despite being massively tempted to google a picture of a dog turd and post it as my match report in the immediate aftermath of the game, it’s probably far more mature to offer some considered opinion, so I’ll attempt to do that instead. So ner.

For a glorious half hour, between the news of City losing and the lead up to our late kick-off, a warm, thin, golden sliver was allowed to breakthrough the gloom, and bathe our huddled personage. We thought it was hope. Turned out it was unpleasant, stinky piss.

You could have started writing the headlines for the website at half time, such was the inevitability of our fate. ‘It wasn’t to be’, ‘one of those days’. You wouldn’t even have to take the trouble to interview Harry for the umpteenth time. C&P the quotes from all our home draws ‘we created enough chances’, ‘we had loads of possession’, ‘we tried everything but couldn’t break them down’. Horribly, horribly familiar.

Gareth Bloody Bale. Those who’ve taken even the most fleeting of glances over these pages in the weeks following young Gareth’s ‘return’ from injury, won’t be shocked to know that I’m not in the least bit surprised that he’s now probably pondering a return for our Christmas fixtures. Anyone else been massively frustrated by his reluctance to run at anyone, or even run into space since his return? So much of his game is about twisting, turning and being quick off the mark. When you’ve had a back injury like he has, these are things you don’t want to be doing. I’m by no means an expert, but having had smatterings of physio treatment in my time, I have had some experience of trying to play a bit of footers while carrying a minor injury to the hip/lower back, and our young winger has been showing all the classic signs of somebody who’s got no confidence in his body to stand up to the rigours of Premier League football.

Phrases like ‘you’ll get hurt if you go in half-hearted’ and ‘hit him early and let him know you’re there’ are ones that will ring a few bells for anyone who’s ever played at even the lowest of levels, but are as relevant as they are clichéd. Any opposition manager worth his salt over the past few weeks would have told every one of his players that a hit on Bale takes him out of the game. They can smell his fear a mile off. The pictures of his ankle going are truly sickening, but unfortunately, a vivid example of what happens when you play hurt and go in tentatively.

As for the rest, Modric and Sandro were our best players once again, while the ‘Rafa on the Right’ project continues to baffle and annoy in equal measure. Pav had one of those games where deploying a ‘Wacky Weasel’ up front would have been more use, and Defoe? Perhaps ‘Underworld’ can do a ‘Born Offside’ remix and compile a four hour video to accompany it.

I’d like to be looking forward to giving Man City’s cage a bloody good rattling tomorrow, and find out what they’re really made of over the next couple of weeks. Instead, I’ll be watching on and wondering what could have been.