<p>Ever since Blackpool won promotion in that pulsating Championship Play-Off Final back in May, things have been a little quiet in the North West. Even Ian Holloway, the manager who is known and loved for his bizarre and occasionally weird post match comments has been a little shy. There is no doubt that everyone involved in the club is so excited for the new season regardless of the sniping of footballs elite.</p>
<p>Every bookmaker and betting shop in the UK has them as firm favourites to go down, fans of other clubs are simply marking 6 points down for the two fixtures they have against them and the club are rushing to get temporary standing ready for the third game of the season as the opening day match has been switched to Wigan Athletic to allow them more time to complete the work. Football snobs don’t want teams like Blackpool in the Premiership, but they got promoted because they deserved it. </p>
<p>Of course clubs such as Blackpool, Wigan, Stoke, Bolton and Blackburn will always be looked down upon. Certain people will often point to attendances and performances and claim these clubs have no right to be in the top flight. Yet, all of them are here on merit, they didn’t win a raffle to gain promotion. All suffer from public relation assassination in sections of the media, because they’re classed at little clubs who diminish the Premiership brand.</p>
<p>Whilst clubs with much larger fanbases, such as Leeds United, Sheffield United, Middlesbrough, Nottingham Forest, Southampton and Sheffield Wednesday are in the lower leagues, there are reasons for that. It’s not bad luck, it’s not unfortunate. All of them lost their Premiership places through bad decisions, poor management and boardroom suicide. They all deserved relegation, its a harsh reality but it’s true.</p>
<p>Blackpool know that everyone outside of Bloomfield Road seems them as cannon fodder, though a similar train of thought may have been there last season. They were heavily tipped to go down out of the Championship last season as were Scunthorpe and Barnsley and none of them did. No-one of course, apart from the most optimistic of Blackpool fans could have envisaged a situation that occurred, but promotion was achieved and that is that.</p>
<p>The club have absolutely nothing to lose and Holloway said after the Play-Off final victory that this promotion could be the making of the club. They’ve suddenly found themselves with £100 million on their doorsteps, an unimaginable figure for such a club that nearly went of business 25 years ago. For them, regardless of the results, being a Premiership side has completely changed the clubs future from hoping to get by to being able to do everything they never thought they could.</p>
<p>Holloway wants to completely rebuild the clubs infrastructure to support its future. He knows that he cannot spend millions on players because some players and agents will simply not give them the time of day. He will be scouring the free agent lists and looking to Championship clubs to see what he can get to strengthen the club and get value for money. Frittering it away on stupid wages for players who don’t care what happens is not they way they are going. Blackpool can now write their own future free of worrying. Having a player of the calibre of Charlie Adam can only help the cause.</p>
<p>Of course they face a massive task ahead to keep themselves in the league, but so what. They can’t let the pressure, the odds and the snobbery get to them. They need to simply go out and enjoy the experiences, everyone thinks they’ll get hammered every week, so why play with fear. The squad can relax and play football and give it 100% knowing that every point will be a very important and proud achievement for the fans, the club and the manager. No guts, no glory.</p>
<p>Please leave me your comments below and you can follow me on www.twitter.com/paulbestall</p>


Blackpool Have Nothing To Lose Next Season

Blackpool Have Nothing To Lose Next Season - World Soccer Talk

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<p>So it’s official then, Owen Coyle will be the new manager of Bolton Wanderers and Burnley now have to find the right man to replace him as they look to continue the good work this season has produced. It is crucial that the chairman, Barry Kilby, makes the right decision in who to appoint as Coyle’s successor at Turf Moor.</p>
<p>Without wanting to state the obvious, it is paramount to Burnley’s continued success this season that the right man is given the job. That means the chairman has to avoid being star struck when the same old names come calling for the vacancy. Get it right and Burnley’s home form should see them stay up. Make the wrong decision and the club could spiral to the foot of the table in weeks.</p>
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<p>Whilst Kilby should be rightly lauded for appointing Coyle in the first place, I don’t think anyone could have predicted just how much of an effect he would have on the sleeping giant. Stabilising the club by keeping them in the Championship and slowly building, improving the side year on year would have been a wonderful achievement. He surpassed all that when they won the play off final with their highest finish to a season since 1976.</p>
<p>Yet, you only have to look back to the mid nineties to see the age old disease that afflicts certain chairman. They get star struck and with the tenures of Adrian Heath and Chris Waddle still in the minds of Burnley fans, the last thing the club needs is a ex-footballer who thinks he can manage in the Premiership. They need someone who knows the demands of Premiership football and what the club means to the fans. It is not an easy decision for the club to make but they have to keep their eye on the prize.</p>
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<p>It also means avoiding such arch self publicists as Graham Souness, Ruud Guillit, Bryan Robson and Gianluca Vialli. Men who’s reputations are fanned by the hero worship dished out to them as pundits on Sky Sports. Ignore their failings as managers, they’ve won countless trophies as players, men such as Tony Cottee who took over a Barnet side flying high only to completely destroy them in less than 5 months. Star struck chairman should be banned.</p>
<p>So I had a look on the<a href="http://www.leaguemanagers.com/index.html" target="_blank"> League Managers Association Website</a> earlier, to see who was available on their list. Oddly, Souness, Vialli and Guillit are still touting their wares, but a couple of oddities appeared. Burnley’s two previous managers before Coyle, the overrated Steve Cotterill and the universally detested Stan Ternent are still on there.&nbsp; In fact most of the list reads as a who not to give the job too, with John Barnes and Tony Adams still refusing to realise their limitations and the ever popular Gary Megson available if you want to alienate your entire fan base.</p>
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<p>Yet there are some stand out candidates, firstly Alan Curbishley is there, as is Mark Hughes and Steve Coppell. Former Scotland manager George Burley and&nbsp; Paul Jewell are still available. For me, those are the 5 top options of unemployed managers that the LMA are offering. Curbishley wouldn’t probably want to move so far North and probably Coppell is wrestling with the idea of returning to Reading no doubt.</p>
<p>It may be too soon for Mark Hughes to return to the game so quickly after his ignomious exit from Manchester City which leaves Burley and Jewell. Burley proved at Ipswich that he could work on a tight budget, play effective and attractive football and earn promotion whilst at Ipswich. What he has against him is his failure to deal with bigger name players and keep sides in the Premiership. Jewell also has proved an ability to make a purse out of a sows ear, as his spells at Bradford City and Wigan Athletic showed.</p>
<p>Jewell though is still tainted by his awful spell at Derby County and Burley proved in his third Premiership season with Ipswich and during his time as Scotland manager, he just can’t handle big name players. He was also tainted with a torrid spell at Pride Park, which begs the question, what happens to managers at Derby County?? So would going after a manager currently employed be the answer?</p>
<p>Looking outside the Premiership though only seems to point to one candidate who could cope with the job and the pressure of Premier League football. He’s managed an international side and took a team from non league to the cusp of promotion to the Championship. He then took over another sleeping giant and took them up before almost taking them to the Premiership in 2008. That man is Gary Johnson at Bristol City and I believe he’s the only man out there for the job at Burnley.</p>
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<p>Now, don’t laugh but I honestly feel he’d be perfect for the job and would keep Burnley up. The only downside is that potentially, Bristol City are a bigger club, with a larger fan base. This season, they’re averaging 14,553 fans a game, whilst Burnley are almost at capacity with 20,344. Promotion for Bristol City would be a massive boost for the area, and with plans to move the club to a 30,000 seater stadium by 2011, with option to increase it to 42,000, would Johnson give all that up for a crack at the Premiership? It’d be a tough ask, but if they could get him, then they should bite his hand off. Just don’t give it to one of the usual suspects, it’d be curtains for Burnley.</p>

Burnley Have To Make The Right Choice

Burnley Have To Make The Right Choice - World Soccer Talk

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