Macclesfield Town 2 Blackpool 1
Match Report (24th March 2001)
LOSING OUR WAY by John Secker
The team were not dreadful, just disappointing - they made plenty of chances, but they failed to take them until it was much too late. At the other end defensive blunders gifted Macclesfield with two goals, and even when they were 2-0 down there seemed to be a lack of urgency about Blackpool's play which should not have been there.
Lee Collins lost his place in the Blackpool side as Gary Parkinson, one of Blackpool's deadline day signings, came in at right back, with Coid moving forward to the right side of midfield. The other new signing, Jamie Milligan, was on the bench. Apart from this Blackpool were unchanged, so Hughes continued as a substitute, with Reid and Shittu preferred in the centre of defence.
Blackpool had an early scare, after only about five minutes, as Jaszczun let his man past him on the wing, and a cross came over from the left. Barnes only managed to get a hand to it, and it fell to a forward in the middle of the box. As he shaped to shoot Barnes did well to get down and smother it, but the ball bounced to another forward, and his close range drive was blocked by another desperate dive, by Shittu I think, before the ball was eventually hacked away.
Many people celebrated at the news that Collins would be out of the team, but for me the midfield without him lacked bite, although Wellens and Milligan worked hard enough. Coid was not making much impression up the right, and most of the interesting play for Blackpool came on the left flank - however it usually fizzled out with a poor cross. The best penetration in the early stages came when Murphy ran onto a through ball wide on the left, but of course there was nobody in the middle to take advantage, and by the time support arrived the defence was back in place.
Two defensive errors in the middle of the half decided the course of this game. The first was a collective failure, although Reid played the major part. It started with a pass out from the centre by Reid, which was misdirected behind Jaszczun and went into touch. From the throw, Reid fouled his man and gave away a free kick over on the left. The kick was played high into the box, and just beyond the penalty spot it found an unmarked forward, who put the free header past Barnes into the net.
Only a minute or two later a cross from the other flank resulted in a free header again, but this time the forward put it over the bar. However the respite did not last long, and this time the error was down to one man, Shittu. He had the ball over towards the right hand corner of the Blackpool box, and played a short pass across to the centre, which went straight to an attacker. The defence were outnumbered, and when the ball was played to another forward in the box, he had a simple job to place it past Barnes.
To be fair to Blackpool, they were not crushed by these goals, and in fact they very soon created two excellent chances. In the first, a neat passing move gave Simpson the chance to run at the edge of the box, on the right. He hit a curving, high shot for the far top corner, but it struck the face of the crossbar and bounced away. This was bad luck, but a few minutes later a more culpable miss occurred when Ormerod was put clear through into the box, with only the keeper to beat. He snatched at his shot first time, and failed to hit it properly, so the save was easy.
The traffic was by no means all one way, and the defence still showed a tendency to panic. After a couple of worrying moments, as the half time break approached, there was one more wobble. A Macclesfield attack broke into the Blackpool box on the left, and as the forward shaped to shoot, a tackle came in from behind which brought him down. The referee waved the appeals away and the game went on, but it was a close thing, and if it had been a Blackpool player brought down the visiting fans would have been livid. There was still one more moment of drama in the half, as Jaszczun played a long first time ball high into the box from wide on the left wing. Murphy got free of his marker and, jumping forward, just managed to get his head to the ball and deflect it towards the goal. We held our breath, but he had not made sufficient contact and the ball went wide of the post.
After the interval Blackpool were attacking the end where their fans were standing, and they started strongly. Several attacks led to nothing, and then after five minutes came the moment when we began to realise this was not going to be Blackpool's day. Ormerod chased a back pass to the keeper, who kicked it upfield. It was headed back up the middle - Ormerod, in an offside position, kept out of the play, and Simpson went running through under the ball, which landed on his back. Ormerod and Simpson now got involved in a brief tussle with two defenders on the edge of the box, which ended with Simpson emerging with the ball, with only the keeper between him and the goal. He took aim, then fired his shot wide of the left hand post.
For the next fifteen minutes or so, the pressure was all from Blackpool, but it was all happening in a curve about fifteen yards outside the box, as the ball was passed around, backwards and sideways, but hardly ever into a dangerous position. There were few crosses, and none which caused any serious problems for the defence, and a few shots from long range, none of which had any power and none of which tested the keeper. It was the play of a team which had the ability, but not the confidence, so nobody was prepared to do anything difficult or risky, and all we got were safe short passes until, eventually, one went astray and the move broke down. There was no urgency, no sense that Macclesfield had to be put under pressure. Three substitutions were made during this time. Firstly Walker came on, with Jaszczun leaving and Coid filling the left back spot. Next Hughes came on in a straight swap for Shittu, who had been more than usually accident prone. Finally Simpson, who had never looked in touch, was replaced by Jamie Milligan, who had a few runs along the right flank, but didn't really have time to show what he could do.
By the time he came on, with twenty minutes left, the Blackpool effort had run out of steam. Walker had blazed a good chance high over the bar, resulting from a knockdown by Murphy, and Macclesfield, who had simply been attacking on the break, now took over again. They had another golden chance when a cross found a forward unmarked, but once again he put his header high above the goal. An attacker was given space outside the box to line up a shot which dipped over Barnes, but hit the top of the bar.
In the last ten minutes, Blackpool managed to get back into the Macclesfield box. A corner from the right brought a good header from Walker, downwards towards the goal, but it was kicked off the line. Then, finally, with just four minutes left, Blackpool scored. The ball was played through to Walker in the box, in the centre. He controlled it, and as the keeper came out, he shielded it, and tried to turn for a shot on his left foot. This was blocked, so he turned the other way instead, and placed a right foot shot past the keeper and into the net. It was a well taken goal, but much too late.
A couple of minutes later, right on full time, the game flared up. On the half way line, Reid tackled straight through the back of a Macclesfield player. Another home player charged over and started a bout of fisticuffs, in which Reid joined with eagerness. After the dust had settled, both Reid and the Macclesfield player were shown the red card.
There were four minutes of time added on, but even at this late stage Blackpool showed little urgency. In the very last minute they were on the attack, all the big men were waiting in the area, but still the ball was passed across and back, nobody put in a cross, and eventually a pass was misdirected, Macclesfield cleared their lines, and that was the end.
This was not a terrible performance, it simply lacked bite. Blackpool created plenty of chances, they had more of the game than Macclesfield and if they had scored first, to steady their nerves, they would probably have won about 3-0. But nerves are what it is all about now, just as it was in '95/6, and Blackpool's nerves are all over the place. They need to settle down, somehow, or they risk sliding back out of the promotion hunt altogether. Afterward the game Steve McMahon was hinting strongly that Walker is likely to get a start next week - he has certainly earned that in the last few games, as he is looking increasingly at home. It is also one possible way of shaking the team up, and if Walker's sharpness can give Blackpool an early goal, he might win the game all on his own.
Team (4-4-2): Barnes, Parkinson, Jaszczun (Walker 58), Reid (capt, sent off 90), Shittu (Hughes 64), Coid, Wellens, M Milligan, Simpson (J Milligan 71), Murphy, Ormerod
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John Secker