Where to now for Blackpool?

The third in a three-part series detailing possible next steps for the relegated Premier League teams.

Blackpool's one-season jaunt in the Premiership, perhaps likely always to be record-setting, has come to a close. The Tangerines did set records, but not the ones that many predicted at the start of their top flight campaign. Blackpool boasted the smallest wage bill seen in the EPL for several years as well, capping their players' deals at a (comparatively meagre) ₤10,000 per week. They also scored a Premier League record number of goals by a relegated team and may have had one of the better records in league history of any relegated side against the division's elite.

As expected, Blackpool were eventually relegated. But they brought a spirit to the Premiership which is going to be missed and English fans are hoping that Swansea City can bring some of the same verve in their Premier League bow next year. It's arguable that while Blackpool expected this and prepared for life back in the Championship by banking much of their TV revenues and are likely to do so again with their parachute payments.

Let's take a look at how Blackpool can bounce back into the Premier League:

Blow the whole thing up and start again

Sheffield United went down this year after three years of trying to replace their Premiership squad on a bit-by-bit basis. They came out of EPL relegation in reasonable financial shape, given their West Ham settlement and reinvested part of those monies in an attempt to recapture EPL status. The gamble - like many of their signings - didn't pay off and League One now hosts Steel City derbies. With Blackpool unlikely to be able to retain their better players (Adam, Campbell, Gilks and Crainey), perhaps it's best to bid a fond farewell to the team that overachieved the last two years. Chalk them down to a beautiful, happy memory and move on.

This would allow the Seasiders to maintain their business model of not overpaying wages or transfer fees, which in turn would give manager Ian Holloway the chance to build again from the ground up around a combination of Matt Phillips, Elliot Grandin, Gary Taylor-Fletcher, perhaps Luke Varney and the everpresent Ian Evatt. This would again be a long process, but with responsible use of their parachute payments they could raise their wage ceiling by ₤3-5K from their current ₤10,000 ceiling and employ better quality players. This challenge is one of building the club from a small-scale Championship one to a middle-tier team capable of challenging year-in, year-out yet still with the finances to retain their best players.

In essence, this would keep to Karl Oyston's original plan of building a club, not a team.

but for instant gratification:

Sell Charlie Adam and replace him

Adam was crucial to everything Blackpool has done over the past two years. His scoring in the Championship (18 goals and 8 assists) allowed the Tangerines the chance to cream Cardiff in the Playoffs and he followed that dose with 12 EPL goals and 8 assists. Sir Alex Ferguson, Kenny Dalglish and Harry Redknapp are all admirers - even if only two of those three are actually interested in bringing him in. He'll go this Summer. The man 'Olly signed in January to replace him, Andy Reid, ex of Sunderland has already departed.

Chances are Adam will fetch somewhere between ₤5-10 million, significantly below the rumoured ₤14 million asking price in January. Reinvesting some of that money in a potential replacement - the first names that stream to mind are Joe Ledley, Kris Commons and Lewis McGugan, all potentially interested in a move but hard to get - in Adam's central role could go some way towards ensuring another Tangerine top-10 finish. Likely though, as DJ Campbell, Stephen Crainey and Matt Gilks will follow Adam out the door, it's possible Holloway decides to revamp the entire Blackpool squad and with it, alter the way they play their game.

Try to keep DJ Campbell

For so long, Dudley Campbell has been earmarked "Championship Only - Leave behind when promoted". After thirteen EPL goals, his publicist has tagged him available and he could move if the price is right. He - and his services - are needed in the Northwest, so Chairman Oyston should try and retain him. If they can't, the recently released Kevin Phillips could prove a bargain-basement type replacement for his fox-in-the-box role and Marlon King has been good for Coventry City since his mid-season arrival.

Reinforce the defense, however, whenever, with whatever. Use 4x2s if needed.

Blackpool leaked goals partly because of their up-and-down style of play, and partly because their defence simply wasn't up to Premiership standards. Ian Evatt, wholehearted trier that he is, just doesn't cut the mustard as a EPL centre-back. How about testing Burnley's resolve for Clark Carlisle? Perhaps ask a few pointed questions of promoted QPR's spare central defenders as well. As for full-backs, see what Cardiff are doing with the disposable Paul Quinn or how much Coventry City really wants to keep Richard Wood.

The task is harder for Blackpool than for West Ham or Birmingham simply because they don't have the same foundations for growth as their relegated comrades. On the bright side, however, they don't have any of the crippling debt which is likely to play a key role in the future fortunes of the other two clubs, meaning that they are in a prime position to build a lasting entity rather than embark on a short-term "Premiership or (literally) bust" campaign.

Blackpool, Premiership strugglers, stick to their (pop) guns

Though Ian Holloway has earned plaudits for his attacking play and forthright press conferences as well as Charlie Adam for his "wonderful left peg", it could be that their Blackpool team are doomed to relegation from the Premiership this season. Holloway's philosophy, which he said came about after a period out of the game where he watched too much boring football, is to attack at all costs - a vast difference from the dour style he favoured as manager of Bristol Rovers, QPR, Plymouth and Leicester.

Adam and a mildly-surprising DJ Campbell helped the Tangerines into the top half early this term with an flurry of goals, but the club has won only twice this year in the Premiership and now sits seventeenth, out of the drop zone only on goal difference. But the offensive style so favoured by the Seasiders has come at a cost - Blackpool have conceded seventy goals already this season, one of the worst totals in the Premier League over the past ten years. There are still three matches to go.

Only seven other times has a team shopped over seventy goals. Three of those times occurred last year as Wigan (79 goals conceded), Burnley (82 conceded) and Hull (75) got pounded repeatedly by larger clubs. Over the past decade, of all the teams that conceded more than Blackpool have this year, only last year's Wigan escaped relegation; a fact due probably more to other club's incompetence rather than any particular Latic resolve. So does a promoted team playing expansive football have any benefit - other than aesthetic - in the Premier League?

Holloway's men have a goal difference of -22, meaning they've conceded 22 more goals than they've scored. Since 2001-02, every other club who's conceded more than seventy goals in a season boasts a goal difference in excess of -35. His fast-paced tactics mean their scoring balanced (somewhat) the ineptitude of their defence leaving them better placed (for now and without them taking a disastrous thumping in their last three games) than every other porous club this decade. Perhaps we're looking at this the wrong way: while 'Olly likes attacking football and instructs his club to play that way, he's probably correctly surmised that with the defence at his disposal, their best chance to avoid the drop is to attack.

However, football is more than stats. The Blackpool boss could have (again) correctly judged his club didn't have the mettle to compete against giants like United and Chelsea and thought it best to go out playing the style that got them to the Big Dance in the first place. As with Owen Coyle at Burnley and now Bolton, there's something to be said for sticking to one's principles. If Blackpool were to survive to fight again next year, many would celebrate: another year of Olly's sound-bites, more fluid football and the joy of supporting an underdog in the top flight.

Image courtesy http://live4liverpool.com

How to avoid "doing a Hull"

With their second win in three road matches, the Tangerine Army have vaulted into fourth on the EPL table with seven points from their opening four games. Manager Ian “Olly” Holloway seems to have inspired his men with that crucial sense of self-belief and Blackpool are defying the predictions of practically everyone who tipped them pre-season for relegation.

Where did such a result come from? Certainly not from the stats, where Blackpool conceded 22 Newcastle shots while generating only eight themselves; they allowed Toon 57% possession and were caught offside on ten separate occasions. After being selected as relegation certainties in the Championship last year, Olly's men surprised everyone playing an attacking, fluid brand of football and upstaged Cardiff City last year in the playoffs to clinch promotion to the Premier League. It now appears they have what it takes to make a fight of staying up.

Always known as a character and a genuine bloke, there's no secret that Holloway loves his current charges – perhaps to his own detriment. As an example, he signed striker DJ Campbell during the transfer window even though his premier league pedigree is questionable at best. Part of his modus operandi has been to show faith in the squad which earned that magnificent promotion last year. Upon the last whistle in the Playoff Final last year he rambled “I just wanted to give some of my boys a pay raise for all they've given me” indicating the automatic raise clause in player's contracts generated by promotion.

So it goes that Ian Holloway, after ten years in management, has earned his stripes as a Premier League man. After leaving Plymouth Argyle for Leicester City and sitting at home for a year following his subsequent dismissal, Olly reflected about that chastening experience in the following terms: “I had a year out of football and had to think about what went wrong in my life. I was given some decent values from my mum and dad in our council house and one of them was honesty and trust and loyalty, and I forgot to do all that at Plymouth. I left them and I made the biggest mistake of my life. But I ended up here and it was the best thing I have ever done”. All this sounds like a man who'd learnt the lessons that life tried to teach – lessons that he's now said include eschewing boring football for an attacking mindset and a refresher course in loyalty.

All this bodes well for Blackpool. As a club there's no question they were unprepared for the jump in both quality and professionalism that promotion to the Premier League involved – chairman Karl Oyston's resignation statement three weeks ago said as much – but as a group they are well grounded and may just have the humility required to stay up. Two years ago when Hull City reached the top of the table after only five weeks in the Premier League, the overreaction was both remarkably quick and ridiculously over the top; it's little surprise the consequences for Hull were appalling. Suddenly Phil Brown was the toast of the town and the belief evident in the play of his Hull Tigers meant he became the “automatic choice” for next England manager. Unfortunately, Hull City believed the hype, if only for a fortnight and after leading his charges to an away win at Arsenal, it seemed Brown began to believe he could walk on water. His ego grew so large that he thought it appropriate to finish the season serenading the Hull faithful even though they had survived through none of their own achievements but the utter ineptness of the Newcastle United management.

That he's humble and gracious really suits Olly. In his post-match interview on Saturday, he mentioned his surprise at his boys trumping a club who finished 32 points ahead of them last year in the Championship; what was touching also was telling the world that Saturday's victory was his “proudest moment”, including even the Wembley Playoff victory last year. It seems that the higher-placed the manager, the more excuses they are able to spout to justify their teams performance. This is obviously a factor of expectation: no-one expects Blackpool to win much this year, so Holloway can afford some humility when they're winning. No one would deny that he faces a completely different line of questioning to Carlo Ancelotti, Roberto Mancini and Sir Alex Ferguson.

The gulf in quality between England's top two divisions is self-evident. In the last ten years, 15 clubs have been relegated either after their first or second season in the top flight and only once during that time have all three promoted teams survived. Olly knows he's facing an uphill struggle and has chosen to inspire confidence in his charges and a knit together tightly his playing group while maintaining his down-to-earth nature. When Hull thrived and faltered, it didn't take long for Phil Brown's ego to run away from him beyond all control. The more successful promoted managers of the past five years have been Tony Pulis, Steve Coppell and Alex McLeish – those who've sought expediency rather than a footballing philosophy and, McLeish excepted, are “back-room boys” and not front-men. Team which insist on playing beautiful football on promotion often find themselves demoted even before the season is half over.

Perhaps the pass-the-ball-into-the-back-of-the-net philosophy doesn't work, but what may be successful is the “Us against The World” mentality, where a small club is taught and guided to trust and depends on each individual teammate to pull their weight. Some days one player will carry the team like goalkeeper Matthew Gilks did on Saturday, on other days no-one specifically steps up and a team performance will win or lose the day. The accountability of mateship is much stronger and plays a much greater role any players performances than accountability to a contract or to money. In his book Showtime, NBA supercoach Pat Riley diagnosed “The disease of more”. He describes it taking place when a team has achieved a certain measure of success and suddenly the players lose focus on team goals and begin to focus on “getting theirs” within the framework of team achievement – in basketball this usually represents more shots or more minutes. In signing players hungry to play his type of football rather than those who are trying to prove they are of Premier League quality, Olly has any short-circuited any potential cases of “the disease of more”.

Every single player, from Gilks to Adam started playing the game because they love it, rather than as an opportunity to make money. Perhaps this is Mad Olly's best piece of scheming – bring back the love of playing with each other, bring back the accountability and bring back the sheer enjoyment of playing footy. He, like other grounded managers realise that players always play best when they enjoy themselves.

Game 4: Newcastle United vs. Blackpool

Game Four

Newcastle vs. Blackpool, Saturday 11^th September

0-2 at St. James Park, Newcastle

Ronaldoisadiving[***]: “I'll say it again. Typical @#$%& Newcastle. Pardon my french, but i @#$%& knew we would lose today. Newcastle have to be the most frustrating team to support in the history of the game.”

BecksA09: “utter rubbish today. i can't stand these days! @#$%& weekend now.”

Ronaldoisadiving[***] again: “If we can't beat Blackpool at home then it isn't going to be a good season for us. Don't know about you guys, but my alarm bells are ringing that's for sure. Everton away next week? Can't see us winning that one either.”

It didn't take long, did it? After four matches, the Toon army has begun to turn on the players so gallant in achieving promotion last term. These are direct quotes from Tynetalk.com (http://www.thefootballnetwork.net/boards/list/s70.htm), a Newcastle United fans website where the Toon army can celebrate or commiserate anonymously after the team's weekend performances. I must admit to not watching the match as getting a live feed proved as difficult as it is for Sol Campbell to refuse a free buffet lunch, but from all reports and in all respects the Magpies were outclassed by lowly Blackpool.

It was for days like this that I chose to follow the Newcastle United journey this season – losses to clubs that statistics, commonsense and comparison put down as probable victories for the Geordies. But lo! After ninety minutes of spirited fight from both teams, a botched tackle in the box by Alan Smith and central defenders beaten on the break by two players yet to be fairly recognised for their abilities, suddenly the Geordie faithful are at the players throats again shouting out the usual laundry list of complaints: The Gaffer's too inexperienced. The players aren't up to it. If only Alan Shearer was still playing. If only Diana was still alive.

Blackpool finished thirty-two points in arrears of Newcastle in the Championship last year yet Ian Holloway has them playing an attacking brand of football capable of troubling the mid-table sides; the mid-table sides where Hughton needs to be focusing all his attention and where NUFC should be aiming to reside at season's end. By cultivating an “us against the world”, tight-knit attitude amongst his team, “Olly” has managed to take the Tangerines from “Dangerous at home” category to “Not at all a certain three points wherever we are”. Whether he can maintain this spirit and the results it's produced is very much still in question, but given the disparity in wages between the two clubs, the size of their fan bases, stadia and reputations, the fans on Tynetalk.com pre-match were confident and predictions of a 3-0 win were thrust willy-nilly onto message boards.

So where did it all go wrong? Blackpool aren't the most skilled side, neither are they the speediest. What they do have is a creative hub in Charlie Adam and a few goal poachers able to make their chances count. For the Magpies, though they controlled the ball for much of the match (57%) and generated nearly three times as many shots as their opponents it was for nothing as they were unable to pass Blackpool GK Matthew Gilks. The hype around Carroll has yet to dissipate fully perhaps meaning that too many heads were in clouds (or was the injury that prevented him from playing in the England U-21s actually genuine? Someone call “Tales from the Crypt”...) and new signings Tiote and HBA are yet to gel with the crux of last year's Championship winners. It's obvious that Hughton has faith in his team if not his new high-profile acquisitions as Ben-Arfa was only afforded 18 minutes of field time while Campbell and Tiote didn't play at all. In HBA's defence, he made a significant impact and the clamour now will be to replace a foundering Alan Smith with the Ivorian or the new boy from Marseille next week.

Given their past two results – a draw with Wolves and this loss to the Tangerines – it's obvious that Newcastle have had opportunities to really put their opponents in a vice and squeeze throughout both matches yet have failed to do so. Is this because the players aren't good enough? They should be given their sterling performances against Villa and Wolves. Because they were able to apply that pressure last year in the second tier without a second thought.

Hughton has talent on hand, but it just didn't perform this week. And his model of achievement both last year and this has been very much like Olly's – he's confident in his charges and has inspired that confidence in the players themselves. He is honest and humble, resulting in him having the backing of the team. That he prefers the back room rather than the spotlight makes him the diametric opposite of past bosses Kevin Keegan, Joe Kinnear and to a lesser extent, Alan Shearer – and the players know full well where attention seeking managers got them.

But to sum up, all is not lost for the Black and White. The expectations of the fans have been tempered since their heady days of two years ago. Later, in the same conversation thread, I found the following posts from more moderate fans like tunyc:

“... To be fair, it sounds like their keeper had a blinder. It also doesn't sound like the forwards were the problem, as Carroll had chances and Nolan is described as lively-all for naught against a keeper who was very much on his game. That we surrendered a penalty on what I'm reading described as a foolish, unnecessary and late challenge by Smith is irritating... ... I really hope Tiote can offer some more pace and better tackling. Beyond that, meh- we hit a post before they opened and their second goal was at the end when we were throwing everything forward. If you guys thought this season would be a walk-even to survival-you're going to be proven wrong. Bring on the next one...“

Blackpool FC: The Fate of Holloway

On reading the Guardian online's season preview for Blackpool FC (http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/aug/04/premier-league-preview-blackpool), the perils of being a successful small club became startlingly apparent. Blackpool's conundrum replicates that of Burnley last year: a small club advancing to the top flight via a low playoff position by playing an enterprising brand of football is a no-win situation.

The major problem is one of finance. Manager Ian Holloway has obviously gotten the best out of his squad in order to achieve promotion, especially considering there's (relatively speaking) minimal talent and money available. After a year out of football he decided to embrace a passing game rather than rely on defensive tactics with great success, yet he finds himself ten days from the start of the season with two major injuries (to key midfielder Keith Southern and striker Billy Clarke) and only 18 fit players, including three goalkeepers. The money hasn't been there to remodel the squad – nor has it been there to pay the players owed promotion bonuses – and this dumps the club into a sizable ditch. Should the Tangerines stink it up this year, the man universally known as “Olly” is on a hiding to nothing and will most probably get the sack. But should they win early there's the possibility of him “doing a Coyle”, where his head's turned by a larger club with a more secure future. Given his experiences with Plymouth Argyle that looks unlikely but Football Owners are businessmen and judge their employees by their own standards.

Before the Playoff Final said Olly said he was chasing promotion “To give some of my boys the (pay) raises they deserve”. Already it seems the money isn't there to back that up and the fall guy won't be Chairman Karl Oyston or Latvian owner Valeri Belokon, it will be the manager. According to the Guardian, their turnover last year was only seven million pounds, the second-lowest of all clubs in England's second tier; Belokon personally funded the signing of marquee player Charlie Adam.

Sure, they'll score goals. When you play as flowingly as the Blackpool of last year, there will be some rewards and given the ease with which they were able to pull apart (admittedly Championship) defences last term, they'll probably snatch the odd win. Add the state of their ground – small and roughshod – and the Seasiders may grab occasional Ws as opposition teams struggle to cope; but with the talent on hand, Olly's men look doomed for a sub-30 (sub-20?) point season and ultimately relegation.

Following promotion the rewards come immediately for the manager but they don't last for the long term. Blackpool FC sits awaiting the inevitable losses and will do the only thing viable for them financially: unable to blame the squad, they will blame the manager. When that's a man such as Ian Holloway, it's a damn shame.