Lessons from Yeovil to help beat Blackpool

So the Wanderers are making the shortish trip to Donkeylasherville still searching for a first league win in what has been a truly terrible season so far. Usually I will defend the players to the hilt, the manager, the coaching staff, trying to look for any positive that I can find. Something to grasp onto, however small but even I am finding it hard at the moment.

There is more chance of me dating every member of The Saturdays than one of our strikers finding the back of the net. The lack of confidence is overwhelming the whole team which means none of the little breaks, the nuggets of luck you need to win a game of football are going our way. It's a vicious circle.

If we look back at the Yeovil game, there were so many instances where a simple moment of composure, whether with shooting or the man on the ball getting his head up, we'd have scored a few. I've no doubt that had we had any sort of form going into that game, and played the way we did, we would have scored five, six, or even seven.

I made some key observations regarding this. We worked the ball wide numerous times and got into good positions but time and time again took the wrong option. When the winger needed to drive at the full back, put him on the back foot because there was nobody in the box, the cross went in. When we committed men into the box, the cross did not come.

When the opportunity to shoot came, nobody wanted to take responsibility and took the extra touch, looked for the extra pass which was not on and when we needed the midfield to hold their position in the pocket of space at the edge of the area, nobody was willing to take that gamble.

A Mark Davies or even a Darren Pratley would have had a field day against Yeovil as they are both excellent at finding that pocket of space in that area. Unfortunately our other players don't seem to have the ability or understanding to take advantage of this intelligence.

We did get a huge slice of luck in my opinion with our equaliser. I'm convinced that when Zat Knight hooked the ball back to Mills it had gone out of play but credit to Knight, Matt Mills and Alex Baptise, yes, three centre halves, because they all played to the whistle, a fundamental principle of the game. It's a shame they do not do it more often when defending.

So, what do we need to do to try and beat Blackpool? Looking at what the issues were against Yeovil, it seems quite simple. Relax, let the ball do the work and think about what we are doing. If we need to be patient and turn back then that's what we should do. We are not going to score every time we have the ball so let us work the Tangerines like donkeys on the seafront.

We also need to be ruthless and we can do it.