AROUnD THE
GROUnDSIAn HOLLOWAY
FFT’s columnist oversaw Blackpool’s swashbuckling rise to the top flight with a daring style that thrilled one
and all – then almost kept them there despite conceding 78 goals. And that’s how it should be, says ‘Ollie’...B
eing a manager was already
tough enough before football
changed. These days, it’s not
just about results – style really
matters as well. But you know
what? I’m glad. I’m pleased to say
that supporters don’t want boring,
park-the-bus football.
I cared immensely about what
I wanted to do at Blackpool. I wanted
our game to be really attractive, and
I wanted to enjoy watching my team
attack. I said at the start that I was
going to do something different to
what I’d ever done before, and we did.
But it wasn’t always that way. The
idea actually came from my pal Gary
Penrice, who you’ll know well from this
column by now. When Leicester went
wrong for me, we had a bit of a set-to
with each other – something I never
wanted with Gary. But he said to me,
“You used to be brave and artistic,
and now you just look scared to lose.
Why don’t you go and get an attacking
plan?” So I chose to swot up. I wasn’t
in a job, and that allowed me to see
an awful lot of matches. I travelled to
Spain and watched the national team
train two or three times, and saw a lot
of Swansea and Manchester United. It
was like looking over your neighbour’s
garden fence for ideas and I found it
fascinating – particularly Swansea under Roberto Martinez, who were hitting deep
diagonal balls from one winger to the other. I’d never seen anyone do that, but it
was happening all over Europe. Then I came up with my own plan. I wrote some
principles of play, and plans which detailed exactly where I wanted players to be.
Before, it was an area of the game that I used to rely on having good players to
get results in – the likes of Kevin Gallen and Paul Furlong at QPR, and Barry Hayles
and Jamie Cureton at Bristol Rovers. Luckily for me, I had a great group at Blackpool
who quickly realised that I wasn’t going to bend with my new ways – either they’d
do it, or I’d get someone who could. Every day we trained a session that I’d made
up, as I wanted it to become habit-forming. I got a big boom box to pump some
music and talked about getting into a rhythm – of moving, passing. I swear to you,
it was an absolute joy.Going more attacking felt risky, but
I liked it. I had Gareth Ainsworth at
QPR and spent most of my time trying
to coach him what to do defensively- but if I’d had him at Blackpool, I’d
have done it completely differently.
Eventually, my team knew that if we
got the ball, we were going to look
for a long, diagonal switch straight in
behind their full-back. It got people
like Tom Ince and Matt Phillips in, and
later the likes of Wilfried Zaha and
Yannick Bolasie at Crystal Palace. The
last thing a team wants to do is lose
the ball and then see an opponent
running straight at their back four.
And it worked: in my first season, we
scored 27 more goals compared to
the previous year.
The easiest gameplan to keep going
is, ‘I want you to get one more goal’.
I don’t think sitting on a narrow lead
works, because you can easily lose
momentum and I didn’t want that
negative feeling. Some of our games
in the Premier League were crazy –
we lost 5-3 at Everton after being 3-2
up, and I made a negative change:
I took off DJ Campbell and threw on
a defensive midfielder, then we let
three goals in. I promised the lads I’d
never do it again. If you’re ahead in
a match, it’s usually because you’ve
thrown some punches and knocked them down. Why are you going to go back on
the ropes like Muhammad Ali all of a sudden?
I had no choice but to continue that way after we’d won promotion. Sometimes
I got criticised, but I just said, “I can’t get this team to play another way – it won’t
work.” I couldn’t just change the habits that had got us up. We took points off 14
different clubs in 2010-11 and I think that’s incredible. We won five away games.
Our supporters sang “Can we play you every week?” to Liverpool fans because we
beat them twice. Even other clubs’ fans enjoyed it, because it was getting boring
seeing opposition sides play the same way: ‘break us down or we’ll counter-attack
you’. Unfortunately, 39 points wasn’t quite good enough for us to stay up, but what
an amazing season it was. We had a go, we entertained – and isn’t that what this
game’s all about for the fans?
88 December 2021 FourFourTwo“IF YOU’RE AHEAD In A MATCH, IT’S
OFTEn BECAUSE YOU’VE THROWn SOME
PUnCHES AnD KnOCKED THEM DOWn –
WHY THEn SIT BACK On THE ROPES?”
WHAT’S OCCURRInG