OK, so it’s been a while. So long in fact you probably forgot you had even signed up to this newsletter (and if you’re not yet a subscriber hit that button). That’s fine, I’d almost forgotten I’d set it up too. That said, I did warn you in the intro email that:
I’ll be writing about stuff and the frequency is to be determined. We’ll see. Time is a bit of a constraint in my life right now, but we’ll go with the flow. Needless to say if Blackpool are doing things either great or terribly, on or off the pitch, you’ll probably see posts more often.
So it’s mainly a lack of time that’s stopped me so far - that and being a lazy bastard, but mainly the time thing - but if three wins in a row and climbing into the play-offs doesn’t get me dusting off the old newsletter then nothing will.
Another big factor in the lack of posts so far is that, to be honest, I just hadn’t seen enough of the actual football. My exiled status and a one year old that treats sleep as optional makes it hard to get out and about, but in recent weeks the stars have aligned. A red button match on Sky followed by two games in the flesh for the derby and a local one for me at Bramall Lane and I finally feel a bit more qualified to comment.
So going back to what I wrote at the start of the season, or had been thinking about writing, what’s changed? The most obvious “hold my hands up” opinion is the one where I was beginning to wish Richard Keogh out of existence. I’m far from the only culprit here for sure, but that doesn’t necessarily make it any better. I was wrong, we were all wrong and it turns out the man with pretty much more Championship experience than the rest of the squad put together is actually quite good at football, which sort of makes sense when you put it like that.
It’s also not just that he’s been good (if you discount the first few games), but it’s that so many people appreciate he’s good. The fans have taken him in as a cult figure and this young squad have embraced him too. Being there in the ground you see his influence on those around him, the way he talks to Kenny Dougall with those intimidating eyes like an overly enthusiastic father at a Dads and Lads game.
But the person perhaps most benefitting from Keogh’s impressive run in the side is Marvin Ekpiteta. The former Orient man has had to build his career the hard way all the way through non-league and so his Championship debut season at 25/26 is relatively late. Alongside him however he has a man who he can learn from, look up to and take inspiration from that he could have a lot more years in him at this level.
In fact, you wouldn’t be surprised at Ekpiteta being able to step up to the Premier League given how quickly he has adapted to both League One and the Championship this last 12 months. Debriefing the game yesterday with the Blades-supporting in-laws, it was Ekpiteta who impressed them most and with the leadership of Keogh next to him, you feel he will only get better.
What’s another bad opinion I had in those early weeks? Oh yeah, probably that one where I’d started drafting a newsletter titled ‘Should Blackpool have cashed in on Jerry Yates?’. That’s right, this genius was going to argue that the club might have been better trying to move on the first 20 goal a season striker in decades.
Now hear me out first, there was some logic behind this, which I could break down into the following points:
In Shayne Lavery we had a like for like replacement, a terrier like forward with a knack for getting into great positions and an eye for goal. Lavery’s early season form then went on to make you wonder whether Yates might already be yesterday’s news.
We had no idea whether Yates had it in him to score goals at a higher level and let’s not forget a lot of his goals last season were from the spot. If he proved to be a failure this season his potential fee would surely go down, so selling in the summer could have been at the top of his market value and the sort of thing a smart club like Brentford might do.
Our summer recruitment felt pretty underwhelming and perhaps any potential Yates money could have helped us compete better on fees, or you know, sign a single chuffing right back before the season started.
I’m an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Fortunately for Simon Sadler, he employs properly clever people who knew that Yates could still be a handful in the second tier and had faith that they didn’t need to sell the family silver at the first opportunity. With Lavery’s injury, Yates has slotted back in seamlessly. Even yesterday where Yates’ match-influencing actions were minimal, his running was still important and alongside Gary Madine the two strikers gave John Egan and Ben Davies a difficult afternoon.
At some point Sadler will have to “kill his darlings” and raise some funds if he wants to run this club in any kind of sustainable way and reinvest, but the decision to hold onto Yates for now could mean that rather than receiving a £2m-£3m fee last summer, it could be two or three times that (or more) with a good season behind him this time out.
Seeing Blackpool’s name among the top 6 is certainly exciting, especially now that we are actually in the play-off places for real, unlike the previous week where there was a bit of spurious talk about being “joint 5th” when we were actually 11th. 15 games in is still too early in the season to be thinking we might stay there, but it does at least make you wonder what the upper limits of this squad is this campaign.
You could argue there’s more to come, especially as we have a few key players missing with skipper Chris Maxwell and Shayne Lavery to come back into the side when fit. There’s also the likes of Owen Dale and Sonny Carey who have shown what they can do away to Reading but yet to properly break into the team due to others’ good form.
On the other hand, if you take out the win against a piss-poor PNE, we haven’t won another game by more than a single goal which suggests we are relying on fine margins. Although it did us no harm last season with 13 of our 23 league wins being by just the one goal advantage.
The squad depth in some areas might give Neil Critchley a few concerns too. We were only a failed Kenny Dougall fitness test away from seeing Callum Connolly partner Ryan Wintle in midfield, and Wintle himself is by no means guaranteed to be here beyond January if Cardiff have any footballing nous. They’d be daft not to recall him on current form.
Centre back might also be a worry if anything was to happen to Ekpiteta or Keogh. James Husband has featured there this season, but looks more convincing at full back while Connolly is an unknown quantity at this level. In reserve you have the seemingly permanently-injured Daniel Gretarsson and then Oliver Casey whose arrival from Leeds was greeted with much fanfare but looks to be well down the pecking order.
What is clear is that things can change quickly, both in terms of who’s in favour in the squad and also the run of results. It might feel like we’re on fire right now, and we should definitely enjoy it while it lasts, but this can also be a brutal division and in 15 games’ time the picture might not be quite as rosy.
It’s not that we need to be afraid of anyone in this league necessarily, but the next sequence of fixtures doesn’t look that kind either:
Stoke (h)
QPR (h)
Swansea (a)
West Brom (h)
Birmingham (a)
Luton (h)
That’s six tough games in my book and all teams who I could picture in and around the play-off race, if not higher, come May. But it’s a test we should relish. Come through that lot with double figures in points? Then we can really start to get a bit giddy about what’s possible. And if we don’t? Well, not to worry, we’ve put ourselves in a great position to consolidate in the league and there will be easier fixtures on the horizon.
That’ll do us for now, but don’t go hitting that unsubscribe button just yet. There is more good stuff to come, including my area of expertise in finance, although it’s been so long since I delved into that side of things that I’d forgotten how much work goes into it. Bear with me on some of those pieces.
The next two games also happen to be on TV so your armchair fan here will get more coverage from the dark side of the Pennines, so it might be that you get another newsletter next week, by which point it’s entirely possible I’ll have changed my mind on Richard Keogh yet again.