Ian Holloway will be very happy that his Blackpool side took advantage of a poor Ipswich team who after some promising early play, disintegrated as a team unit the longer the match wore on.

Lining up

Paul Jewell appeared to have watched the way that Derby set up to beat Blackpool at Bloomfield Road last month and set his team up to do something similar. By setting up in a 4-1-4-1 he tried to try to stifle the middle of the pitch and stop Blackpool from controlling that area. Blackpool on the other hand fielded Gary Taylor-Fletcher in midfield which lent itself to Blackpool becoming a more aggressive unit, fluidly changing from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-2-4 depending on the role that Taylor-Fletcher took up. The main change for Blackpool was Matt Hill replacing the injured Stephen Crainey at left back.

Lack of clarity

As alluded to earlier, Ipswich appeared to want to work Blackpool hard in the centre of the field, Jimmy Bullard played in a deep-lying central midfield role with Lee Bowyer and Keith Andrews ahead of him. It appeared that Bullard was expected use the space he found in the deep to try to dictate play. Andrews appeared to be asked to push higher up the pitch and try to hurry up Barry Ferguson in the deep and force him in to mistakes. Whilst this carries a perfectly logical path, it appeared to be focused on how they performed off the ball and they lacked a real plan of attack when they had the ball. They made occasional moves to spread the play wide, but rarely built up any passing rhythm and started to hit hopeful long balls that rarely made any impact.

A Deep Bullard

The role of Bullard is certainly worth noting. He operated in a deep midfield position, most probably as a concession to match up numbers with Blackpool’s three central midfielders. He may have helped to stifle Blackpool in the first half by closing down the space reducing Blackpool’s options, however, for such a role to work he also needed to make tackles and interceptions to gain the ball for Ipswich. He rarely broke up the Blackpool midfield rhythm and obtained the ball to his advantage. Most of the time Blackpool would collect the ball and start again. When he did have the ball he was very deep and although he made some passes to the flanks his passing was devoid of any forward penetration. Bullard appears to enjoying breaking from midfield to receive the ball on the run in the final third and by keeping him so deep Jewell effectively removed a key threat from his team.

Keys to victory

There were a number of reasons for Blackpool’s victory.

They moved the ball out to the flanks early enough to avoid getting stuck in a midfield battle. They consistently unsettled the Ipswich defence particularly in the first half, with excellent passes in to the right hand channel causing Aaron Cresswell at left back real problems on the turn. They initially lacked runners breaking from midfield in the first half which slowed their momentum, however, in the second half Ferguson and in particular Keith Southern broke forward much more regularly and Ipswich failed to cope with that added pressure. Ian Holloway singled out the impact of his defenders stepping up in the second half to create a spare man in midfield to resolve the deadlock. This gave them extra passing options and helped them to gain a greater control in the centre of the pitch. Finally, and most possibly the most vital element, was the excellent display of Taylor-Fletcher. He was active in his movement all game long making him hard to track, especially when he started centrally and moved out wide right. This had the added bonus of helping Blackpool overload Ipswich in that area. His first touches were excellent, as was his link up play and blended midfield and attack supremely well. His movement ensured that he was rarely picked up effectively by Ipswich and ended up having a lot of time to pick his passes and create openings for Blackpool.

Moving on

A display such as that from Ipswich shows clear organisational issues on the playing side, a lack of playing discipline and a lack of a game plan coming from the management. They’ll struggle to pick up points and only a strong performance from Danny Collins in the centre of defence stopped them from being over run for the duration of the match. Blackpool will not have such an easy victory all season long, but still appear to lack quality passing in the final third and an appreciation for game tempo. Arguably those last two elements are those which they lost with the departure of Charlie Adam and have yet to replace. The loan market is now open and Ian Holloway may well be seeking those ingredients from a loanee.