The last time that the Seasiders kicked a ball in anger, it was against West Ham in the Play-Off Final at Wembley to decide which of them was to return to the top flight of English football. Blackpool lost. But at Bloomfield Road was an ideal opportunity for Ian Holloway’s team to start the new campaign to leave the Football League by the front door into the Premiership against one of the pre-season favourites to leave it by the back door into another Premiership: in this case, the wilderness of the Blue Square variety.
But Morecambe have a good record in the League Cup, having chalked up away wins at supposedly superior sides such as Preston North End, Wolves and Barnsley in recent seasons. Blackpool should have known this and treated their guests with the respect they have earned during their last five years as a League Two club. But they didn’t. They appeared to commit the cardinal sin that supposedly ‘better’ teams playing against nominally weaker ones often do: and that is simply to under-estimate their opponents. Blackpool looked complacent for large periods of this match and neutrals would have been forgiven for thinking that the team in the black strip were the Championship side at least during the First Half because the visitors dominated the contest right from the kick-off until the end of the opening period and played by far the better, more progressive football. Jim Bentley`s side won the first free-kick of the match after two minutes and scored the opening goal just three minutes later when Lewis Allesandra beat a despairing Matt Gilks low to his right with a faultless shot from the centre of the penalty area following excellent approach play by the team from thirty miles up north along the Lancashire coast. With just ten minutes on the clock, Morecambe could and maybe should have gone further ahead when debutant Andrew Wright cleverly played Jordan Burrow in for a shot on goal which the Shrimps’ centre forward blazed over the bar. And so it went on with Morecambe getting the bulk of the chances and the set pieces until Matt Phillips hit the visitors’ left hand post with Barry Roche beaten with twenty-seven minutes gone. Two minutes later, returning ex-Blackpool player and Morecambe Captain Will Haining did well to block another effort in the penalty area which Roche was happy to collect in mid-air. The goalkeeper performed even better after 33 minutes when he produced an excellent save to keep out a shot from Blackpool’s outstanding player Thomas Ince, who had been played-in by a long ball from the back. The Blackpool number eleven turned provider after 42 minutes but his clever cross was headed way over the bar by an on-rushing Stephen Crainey. Morecambe thus went in a goal to the good at half time with the fairly sparse home crowd strangely subdued.
Jim Bentley must have told his charges to expect the team in the tangerine strip to throw the kitchen sink at them at the beginning of the second half. And so it proved as the home team forced a succession of corners during the opening minutes. But the Shrimps’ goal was never seriously tested and Morecambe gave a warning of things to come after 49 minutes when Gilks did well to gather another dangerous cross from Wright. Three minutes later, Ince set-up the home side’s best chance of the game so far which was totally wasted by Gary Taylor-Fletcher. Ian Holloway’s team had reason to regret this all the more when the visitors extended their lead after 55 minutes with an excellent strike from Andy Fleming within the penalty area which gave the Blackpool goalkeeper no chance. As the Shrimps noisy supporters in the East Stand roared their team on almost as loudly as the Eurofighter and other aircraft which were performing acrobatics in the skies over the stadium throughout the game, the hosts belatedly started to face up to the fact that they were being well beaten in a game they would normally be expected to win and started to put some moves worthy of a team with Premiership aspirations together. After 76 minutes, Alex Baptiste reduced the arrears against a side which seemed to be visibly tiring and after that, they had the better of the chances with Phillips hitting the post again with just two minutes left to play of normal time. Blackpool didn’t have it all their own way, though: it was All Hands To The Pump to stop the tricky Allesandra after an hour and substitute Danny Carlton could have sealed the match for the visitors during injury time if his poor pass to an unmarked Kevin Ellison had been more accurate.
Morecambe rode their luck towards the end but they deserved their win if only for their positive attitude throughout the game. They will play worse in League Two and still win: Blackpool must treat this game as a Wake-Up Call: they will have to improve considerably if they expect to launch any sort of realistic challenge in the Championship during the season which starts next Saturday.
Blackpool: 1 Matt Gilks; 3 Stephen Crainey; 5 Neal Eardley; 6 Ian Evatt; 7 Matt Phillips; 11 Thomas Ince; 12 Gary Taylor-Fletcher (27 Tom Barkhuizen 75 mins); 14 Ludovic Sylvestre (19 Elliot Grandin 45 mins); 15 Alex Baptiste; Barry Ferguson (C); 31 Angel Martinez (8 Tiago Gomes 58 mins).
Substitutes not used: 21 Mark Halstead; 20 Craig Cathcart; 4 Scott Robertson; 18 Isaiah Osbourne.
Morecambe: 1 Barry Roche; 22 Andy Parrish; 3 Robbie Threlfall (16 Stewart Drummond 82 mins); 6 Will Haining (C); 15 Chris McCready; 17 Andy Fleming: 18 Gary McDonald; 8 Andrew Wright; 9 Lewis Allesandra (30 Danny Carlton 66 mins); 14 Jordan Burrow (10 Richard Brodie 53 mins); 11 Kevin Ellison.
Substitutes not used: 25 Andreas Arestidou; 2 Nick Fenton; 7 Izak Reid; 27 Jack Redshaw.
Ref: Paul Tierney.
Att: 6083.
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