Blackpool 2 Mansfield Town 2
OUT OF JAIL AGAIN by John Secker
Another late goal at Bloomfield Road this afternoon, this time earning Blackpool a point which in all honesty they hardly deserved. They struggled all afternoon to find any sort of shape against very moderate opposition, and hardly anybody on the team could take any satisfaction from their performance. Paul Simpson was made man of the match, but in my view only Murphy and Ormerod were in competition for that title. The defence were dreadful, midfield failed to compete or to pass properly, and even Barnes lost his kicking ability, as well as making an error which led indirectly to the second goal. Ormerod worked and ran as hard as usual; Murphy also worked hard, as Blackpool resorted frequently to the high ball upfield, and both of them scored a well taken goal at crucial moments.
Blackpool announced an unchanged team, indeed an unchanged squad, after the 3-0 victory away to Southend last Saturday. Before the game Danny Shittu was presented with an award (Match Magazine's Matchman of the Month), and the result was similar to that produced by the Manager of the Month award, total disaster. Blackpool pushed up in attack for the first couple of minutes, and in fact Murphy had a half chance when he controlled a ball dropping to him in the box, but a defender cleared it for a corner before he could shoot. However, the first time the ball went into Blackpool's half Shittu made not one but two blunders, resulting in Mansfield taking the lead. First he dithered on the ball, which meant his clearance was blocked and a Mansfield forward raced into the area with the ball. Then his tackle from behind was simply awful, sweeping the forward's legs from under him and getting nowhere near the ball. He wasn't even booked, because it was obviously incompetence rather than malice. There was no argument over the penalty, and Greenacre (once on loan at Blackpool) blasted it straight up the middle as Barnes dived right.
For about ten minutes after this, Blackpool continued to press strongly and in an organised way. They won several corners, but for some reason - planning or simply errors - Simpson was playing his crosses very low, or along the ground, and nothing came of them. One corner was hit very deep, and Reid got back to it, heading it in towards Shittu, but it was cleared. Then finally Simpson got a corner perfect, curving out then in towards the far post, where it fell to Reid. He had a clear header as the ball dropped in front of him, but somehow he missed the target and deflected it well wide for a goal kick.
This seemed to mark the moment when Blackpool's confidence began to desert them, and their cohesion steadily started to slip away. It started at the back, where Shittu and Reid were both playing like beginners, giving the ball away, getting pulled out of position and allowing the Mansfield forwards to run past them into space. Several times the defence were beaten in this way, but fortunately the visiting strikers were not good enough to take advantage. At the other end there was a lot of hustle, but little production, and the veteran Bobby Mimms in the Mansfield goal had few saves to make. Ormerod was Blackpool's busiest player, as usual, but he still fails too often to produce a telling cross after he has got around the defence. His best run took him up the left wing, well infield from the touchline, past several defenders and into the box. He beat another player and turned towards the goal, then played the ball in to the near post, but there were too many defenders there, and it was scrambled away. Another similar run a little later resulted in a shot - it was weak, and although Mimms dropped it there was no-one close to take advantage.
Although they were struggling to make any impression, Blackpool certainly had the majority of the play, with Mansfield dangerous on the break. Blackpool always had hope if someone could produce a moment of skill, and on 35 minutes it happened. A long ball up the left was put into touch by the defence, and from the resulting throw the ball was played back to Simpson. He hit the cross first time, from very wide on the wing, and for once it was a perfect ball. Murphy was the only forward in the box, as usual, but he was able to rise in front of his marker and meet the cross about ten yards out, and guide the ball into the far corner of the net.
The goal settled the Blackpool nerves a little, but only a little, and they certainly did not recover their normal form. The game stuttered to the break, and we waited to see what effect Steve McMahon's half time talk would make. In the event, less than two minutes after the restart, a series of errors put Blackpool back down into the hole. A long ball was played up the Mansfield right wing, and Jaszczun was looking to shield it out for a throw, but the winger nipped round him and took the ball away. He ran into the box, then pulled it back. A shot came in, not very hard, along the ground towards the near post. Barnes got down to it, but it squirmed away from him and for a moment it looked as though it would trickle into the goal. In the end a desperate hand managed to turn it outside the post for a corner. When the cross came over it was half cleared, and a weak shot came in from outside the box. It stuck under Greenacre's feet, he turned and stabbed at it, and it went past Barnes into the net. A messy goal, and it punctured any thoughts of a Blackpool revival, as they slumped back into the aimless play of the first half.
It is hard to pick out highlights of the second half, because it was all shapeless and very unattractive to watch. As time went by the defence began to look a bit more solid, with Reid recovering his normal cool, and Shittu making one fine covering tackle inside the box. However the distribution was poor, with midfield unable to string their passes together, so eventually it usually resulted in a high ball up to Murphy or Ormerod. One such move nearly resulted in a goal, as Ormerod flicked the ball over his head up the middle, and chasing in after the bounce, tried to head it past Mimms, but only put it straight into his arms. On the hour Wellens came off, replaced by Bushell - Wellens had not been influential this week, as he had in the past few games, but this change did not make any noticeable difference. About fifteen minutes later Milligan came off, and Walker was introduced, a tactical change which recognised the truth, which was that the midfield was totally ineffectual, so the long ball up to the forwards was the best option. Even so, the breakthrough still would not come, with every move seeming to wind up with a misplaced ball into touch or a pass to the opposition. The Blackpool fans were pretty much resigned to the first home defeat of 2001, when Brett Ormerod, still running hard, secured a point. It was a fairly simple move, a ball up the middle, flicked on, and Ormerod was there, firing a shot past Mimms into the back of the net. It was a just reward for a fine, hard-working performance - the tiredness following his illness, which slowed him down last week, has gone completely now. There were a few minutes of injury time, but nobody managed another serious threat on goal, so Blackpool had played their first draw since 8th October.
As it happens, other results at the top of the table mostly went well enough for Blackpool, who are still fifth, but it is certainly two points dropped in the chase for an automatic place. More worrying was the way the team played - they will have to do better than this if they are to get results against teams like Orient and put real pressure on third place in the final run in.
Team: (4-4-2) Barnes, Coid, Jaszczun, Shittu, Reid (Capt), Wellens
(Bushell 59), Collins, Milligan (Walker 73), Simpson, Murphy, Ormerod
Subs not used: Kennedy, Hughes, Clarkson
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John Secker