Simply amazing. In their first top-flight game since 1971, newly-promoted Blackpool stunned the pundits by recording a 4-0 win at Wigan Athletic.
It’s not the first time we’ve seen a promoted side get off to a good start, and it won’t be the last. But Ian Holloway’s men, a team assembled on a shoestring budget and with players signed barely a week before the season even started (including Marlon Harewood, who scored twice), did it in a manner that is hard to believe even for this league.
This was no battle. No scrappy win. No parking the bus. No smash and grab. None of those cliches. Blackpool played the style that brought them critical acclaim in their charge through the Championship play-offs last season. The sort of passing game that you tend to associate with Arsenal, Barcelona, and Spain. The style of attacking football that was tragically too often absent from the World Cup that just passed.
Blackpool demolished Wigan in a most spectacular manner for a promoted side widely condemned by the pundits to relegation before a ball was kicked.
Whether Blackpool can survive in the Premiership is another matter. But the weakness of several relegation contenders gives them more than a chance. Brett Ormerod has played at this level before with Southampton.
But the man upon whom much depends for Blackpool’s chances of making a fist of it is Charlie Adam. The Scottish playmaker underwent a transformation into the Tangerines’ star man last season. A player of undoubted technical gifts and a lethally accurate left foot, he never quite lived up to his potential at Rangers (owing to not being played in the right role), but at Bloomfield Road he has become that player. And if he can show that in the Premiership, then Blackpool may yet trouble more teams.
Arsenal, however, provide the next test for Ian Holloway’s troops. Who knows what is possible there.
roarsome
Guest
GO THE POOL!
David V.
Guest
Wigan were atrocious, no doubt about that. But Blackpool did what none of the other recent promoted sides could do- they played as if they were Barcelona or Spain. The club has seen it all. They were a power of English football before the maximum wage was abolished in 1960. They had players like Stanley Matthews, Stan Mortensen, Jackie Mudie and Ernie Taylor. Then there was Jimmy Armfield, Alan Ball, Roy Gratrix and Ray Charnley. The Blackpool side that won promotion in 1970 had players like Alan Suddick, Tony Green, Tommy Hutchison and Mickey Burns. They missed their chances to get back up during the 70s, and in 1978 were freakishly relegated to the Third Division- after being a top half side for most of the season! It was a terrible blow that took 30 years to recover from, and the club sank like other Lancashire clubs did in the 80s but recovered sufficiently to hold a third tier place for most of the 80s and 90s. One can remember Phil Clarkson in the late 90s, good player in Division Two then, and a brave FA Cup showing at Highbury. And then to more recent times. It has been continuous progress on a shoestring- 6 years of third-tier football leading to the Championship, and three years there leading to the Premiership.
Matt-R
Roar Rookie
In some ways Wigan would have been thinking "thats what we did a few years ago". Its that element of surprise that the newly promoted teams achieve. Its these early games that will keep them up in the top flight, before the rest work out what their playing style is.