How a 3-5-2 might save Blackpool from relegation?

Wigan Athletic had just gone 3-0 up at Bloomfield Road, only minutes earlier Ian Holloway had made a treble substitution in order to salvage something from the game, with three goals needed Holloway had a rethink. That rethink may just have saved Blackpool’s season, but why? Shuffle Holloway shuffled his players and set them up in a 3-5-2 moving from their usual 4-2-3-1 / 4-3-3 shape. On the face of this, it might have been an act of desperation, however, on further inspection it appeared to be a shrewd move. By moving Neil Eardley from right back in to the centre...

Narrow Margins – Blackpool 1 – 1 Newcastle

A much improved Blackpool team worked hard and dominated Newcastle for large parts of the game as the Tangerines gained another Premier League point. An early strike by Peter Lovenkrands was cancelled out by a DJ Campbell flick, but in truth Blackpool had the better chances and would’ve hoped to have converted again to secure the three points. Line Ups This match saw Blackpool’s 4-3-3 go up against Newcastle’s 4-4-2, but as will be noted later on, it wasn’t a straight forward 4-4-2. Ian Holloway brought Matthew Phillips in to his attack and David...

The long and the short of it

A feature of Blackpool’s football under Ian Holloway has been the quick tap free kick as they start another passing sequence instead of a clogging of a high ball forward deep in to the opposition half. When Craig Cathcart made an error in gifting a quickly taken free kick to Wigan in the run up to their opening goal, not only were Blackpool on their way to a 3-1 defeat, but it encapsulated where Blackpool may have been going wrong of late. Territorial When speaking about Cathcart’s error in his column in the Independent on Sunday Ian Holloway made the...

Error Prone – Blackpool 1 – 3 Wigan

Wigan took the points as they turned in a composed performance, taking advantage of chances handed to them by Blackpool. Blackpool on the other hand will want to forget this error strewn match as Ian Holloway continues his search for a settled first eleven. Setting up The team selection for Blackpool centred on the return of Matt Gilks in goal and the restoration of Neil Eardley at right back with Elliot Grandin coming in to the midfield. For Blackpool the problem from the Arsenal game remained how to compensate for the loss of David Vaughan. In truth no one really covered...

'Statting' the narrative

The tactical elements of this game were covered very succinctly over on Zonal Marking, so this post is a brief look at the passing stats of the game and using them to back up the narrative set down by Zonal Marking. The Narrative Blackpool started brightly without ever troubling Arsenal who went on to score two goals before half-time. After half time Blackpool came out fast and worked hard and troubled Arsenal. Blackpool scored, then Arsenal reasserted their dominance scoring a third goal to put the game out of reach. If you look at the pass completions of both sides and...