For a team to be successful at any level of football, it needs to have a player who is capable of scoring goals on a regular basis. In the Premiership, the likes of Wayne Rooney and Robin Van Persie are seen as two of the best players in the world, as they are capable of scoring goals that can change games, and change seasons. However, if you ask these players why they are so successful, then they will usually say that it is down to the other players on the pitch, and their hard work, which allows them to be the ones who grab the headlines.
If you drop down to the Championship, you won’t find many better natural goal scorers than the one currently occupying the Blackpool number 9 shirt. Kevin Phillips’ 6 goals in the Championship this season in Tangerine have moved him on to 260 professional goals, in a career moving into its 18th year, starting at Baldock Town in 1994, which has seen him named as the only Englishman ever to win the European Golden Boot after his incredible efforts in the 1999/2000, which saw him become the second man to ever score over 30 goals in a 38-game Premiership season.
During Saturday evening’s game against Burnley, however, Phillips was a clear example of a striker starved of the creative player that makes the whole team tick. The absence of Gary Taylor-Fletcher, a late withdrawal with a back injury, showed just how good a player he is. Taylor-Fletcher, who is a vast improvement on the player that arrived at the club as a striker turned right midfielder under Simon Grayson when Pool first reached the Championship, has since returned to the middle due to his lack of pace, and it has led to him becoming one of the first names on the team sheet, as he continually weighs in with important goals, sometimes spectacular, and has the football brain capable of unlocking the tightest of defences.
He is the complete embodiment of what the Blackpool resurgence over the last ten years in one player. Released by Leyton Orient in 2002, he has undergone a career transformation. A good spell at Huddersfield led to a move to Blackpool in 2007, and he has become an integral part of the Seasiders’ plans going forward. His recent move back into the midfield, albeit in a central role, has led to a strong presence in midfield that has also allowed for pace on either flank to compliment Phillips in the centre.
Any Blackpool fan who sat through the torturous 90 minutes at Turf Moor on Saturday will agree that Taylor-Fletcher was a massive miss. He brings a forward thinking, optimistic approach to the forward line, and a desire that spreads throughout the team of a player who knows that this level of football seemed a world away when he ploughed along in the lower leagues at the turn of the millennium. There was no invention, a lack of pace due to the seeming inability to bring Tom Ince into the game, and as the ball took so long to reach him, whenever Ince did manage to get onto the ball, he was crowded out by the Burnley defence, who, to their credit, negated Blackpool’s strengths quickly.
Blackpool were outfought, outplayed, and outclassed by a Burnley team who hardly had to move out of first gear. The selection of Brett Ormerod ahead of Callum McManaman, who was so impressive last weekend against Nottingham Forest, furrowed many a brow in the away end, but this was nothing compared to the desperate attempts to work out why Ormerod, standing at a mere 5”10, was the target of every long ball played by Blackpool for the 73 minutes that Ormerod spent on the pitch. Ormerod failed to win a single header against Andre Amougou and David Edgar, both of whom are extremely powerful, and deceptively quick.
The midfield was anonymous. Barry Ferguson struggled to keep up with the pace of the game, Keith Southern put in his usual scrapping performance, and there is certainly a place for him in the side, but Burnley were never threatened, and Jonjo Shelvey was yet again anonymous, only making any contribution to the game on 2 occasions, one for his excellent goal in the 93rd minute, and the other a dreadful tackle in the first half, with his studs up, which should have resulted in him being shown a straight red card.
Matt Gilks was, in all honesty, powerless with all 3 goals, with the only possible complaint being the positioning of the wall for the Wallace free kick, but the strike would have beaten any wall, no matter where it was placed. The main concern, for me, would be the centre half pairing. Charlie Austin and Jay Rodriguez are not a particularly large centre forward pairing. They are capable of holding their own when asked to perform the physical side of the game, but Ian Evatt and Craig Cathcart should have been able to deal with them. Cathcart failed to win a single header all game, and Evatt was easily manoeuvred around the pitch by Austin, who showed Blackpool exactly what they could have had, if they had shown genuine intent when he was available at Swindon.
What should genuinely worry Blackpool fans is that there was a sense that there was no passion behind the shirt. There was a lack of desire and passion to perform on the big day from the men who have been the physical incarnation of team spirit under Ian Holloway. A lot of work needs to be done in a long space of time, and Holloway needs the fans to back the players to the hilt if they are going to get out of this current slump.
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