Team Focus: Blackpool's Worrying Slide Towards League One
On 14 September, they were perched on top of the pile. With five wins and a draw from their first six games, there were already murmurs of a potential return to the Premier League.
Now, with four matches to go, Blackpool are staring down the barrel of a gun with League One inscribed on it. Two points above the relegation zone after two wins from their last 24 games, it has been a crashing descent and what’s more, the crisis may plumb new depths this weekend.
They have only won four more times since coming away from Bournemouth with a 2-1 win in early autumn. It was a victory that secured a record league start for the club but, as it turned out, that afternoon was the day it all started to fall apart.
Paul Ince was retrospectively given a five-game ban for a display of violent conduct towards an official in the tunnel, sparking a remarkable run of indiscipline on the pitch peaking in the defeat at Yeovil where they ended up with eight men on the field at full-time.
Since, they have sacked Ince and then lost his son, Tom, who was also their best player, on the final day of the January transfer window to Crystal Palace; Michael Chopra called their training sessions a 'joke' on Twitter and ended up with a substantial fine; and they have scored only 24 times in 37 games. It makes for grim reading.
On Friday they host Burnley in a game that could see their Lancashire rivals secure automatic promotion. Forty miles separate the two teams but they are currently worlds apart on the pitch.
After that they travel to Brighton and Wigan – two teams fighting for the play-offs. Their final game is against Charlton, who could still be treading water too, but why is a team packed full of players proven at this level performing so poorly?
It was inevitable that a player of Tom Ince’s quality would be heading for the Premier League at some stage soon regardless of his father being in charge at Blackpool or not but 14 games on from his departure, he still remains their top scorer (7) and assist leader (6).
His WhoScored rating of 7.08 may appear average when looking at the wider picture but, with the exception of Gary Mackenzie (7.42), he still has the highest rating of the 36 players to have featured for Blackpool this season.
Of that 36, 17 have reached double figures in appearances – it is understandable that with a change of manager and the need to find a winning combination, different systems and personnel will be tried out. Yet the lack of consistency has had a negative impact: only 10 (including Ince) have made 20 or more appearances leading to a lack of familiarity.
Among that is the current man in charge, Barry Ferguson. He has struggled in the dugout. But when you consider the poisoned chalice he took up, it would be unfair to lambast the Scot.
He may still keep them up but if the Tangerines are to survive they need their strikers to bear fruit. Ricardo Fuller, with a WhoScored rating of 6.74, has averaged a goal every 300 minutes. Steve Davies has averaged one every 411 minutes (with a rating of 6.23) while worst of all, Chopra, who once cost Sunderland £6m, has made 18 appearances and been on the pitch for 567 minutes and has yet to register. His WhoScored rating is 6.07.
Blackpool have conceded fewer than six other sides but only Charlton have scored fewer. Time is running out: they need goals or face the ignominy of falling from first place to relegation in the space of 40 games.
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