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Thread | KO running out of options?
at 16:59 21 May 2015
Don;t know much about this guy but is this a good move or not?
West Ham United assistant manager Neil McDonald is set for talks with League One side Blackpool, with view to their vacant managerial post.
The 49-year-old, who was appointed as Sam Allardyce's assistant in June 2011 has been searching for a managerial position since last summer.
Although he rejected the opportunity to join League Two side Carlisle back in January in order to continue his partnership with Allardyce, KUMB understands that Wallsend-born McDonald has already held preliminary discussions with Blackpool.
The Tangerines have been managerless since Lee Clark resigned following their relegation from the Championship earlier this month, with a record low tally of 26 points from 46 games.
McDonald's potential departure means that all of Allardyce's top-ranking coaches are now lined up for positions elsewhere next season.
With attacking coach Teddy Sheringham confirmed as the new manager of Stevenage, first team coach Ian Hendon is also understood to be close to securing the vacant managerial position at Leyton Orient.
The Os sacked Italian boss Fabio Liverani last week following their relegation from League One and 43-year-old Hendon is perceived as an ideal candidate, as he spent part of his playing career at Brisbane Road in the 1990s.
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Thread | Things you've missed this season?
at 14:46 5 Apr 2015
For me, looking in the Sunday papers and studying the league tables - something that has completely passed me by this year - I used to know pretty much every table and haven't a clue this year. Roll on August! |
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Thread | Further bad news ...
at 17:51 27 Dec 2014
Kirk Broadfoot is out for Rotherham on Sunday .. our one chance of scoring has gone  |
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Thread | Clark has showed Riga up ...
at 19:35 22 Nov 2014
Whilst some may say that Oyston didn't support Riga, he did bring in a good 20 players and to be honest the vast majority of them were bloody awful. Under the same constraints Clark has actually brought in players who look decent - O'Hara, Eagles, Murphy and Lenihan were all a level above the crap that Jose brought in! |
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Thread | International Break - Infinite Jukebox
at 08:41 11 Nov 2014
To keep us all entertained whilst we await another defeat against Bolton, an idea nicked from the Boro forum - the infinite jukebox. Start with artist and title and the following song has to contain a word from either .. so
Queen - It's a Kind of Magic
Magic Moments - Perry Como
Katie Perry - Fireworks
etc etc
So I will start with
Supertramp - Breakfast in America
Go! [Post edited 11 Nov 2014 8:43]
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Thread | No McCormack our Ray of hope?
at 07:57 5 Nov 2014
Certain players names send a shiver down the spine and even though he's not their top goal scorer in 4 goals I hope his suspension may just give Clark one less headache. |
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Thread | Decent Article on this week's developments
at 20:44 29 Oct 2014
Jose Riga was inevitably sacked by Blackpool as the on-going debacle finally came to an end. However, although this battle at the club is over, the war, as far as the supporters are concerned, is still on-going.
Seasiders took to social media to speak their minds on the current chaos. Just as his tenure began, Riga is still well-backed, and it is clear whose side the fans have taken.
The heat on the stove has been on for a while now, but only in the last 18 months have the flames really started to rise. The club has become divided in a dispute between the fans, and for the last four months, Riga and Karl Oyston, Blackpool’s current chairman. To state that Oyston isn’t favoured by the Tangerine faithful would be a certain contender for understatement of the year. Some would go as far as to argue that the Blackpool chairman makes Newcastle’s Mike Ashley, or Cardiff’s Vincent Tan look unusually appealing.
Concerning Riga’s managerial position, many have been debating whether he would resign for a number of months now. Riga was brought in from Charlton Athletic in early June, with the club advertising their new season ticket campaign with the slogan ‘The Riga Revolution’. Exact figures are unconfirmed, but it is believed that 8,000 season tickets were sold, with 4,000 taking up the option of purchasing a two-year deal for a reduced price. However, last Tuesday’s home fixture against Derby saw the lowest home attendance since before the Premier League days. Although the club announced that attendance was a little over 11,000, photographs from the match showed no more than 8,000 home and away supporters, suggesting the Seasiders have begun voting with their feet.
Blackpool suffered their eleventh defeat of the season in a 3-0 defeat to Reading on Saturday, and fans seem to have acknowledged that the club are due for an early relegation to League One. Although, despite the abysmal start to the season, fans were determined to back the Belgian Riga, as he spoke out against the lack of support he was getting from the club’s owners.
Blackpool Supporters’ Trust chairman Tim Fielding has said, “Riga can hold his head high.”
He added, “The situation we are in is a reflection of the recruitment policy in the summer.
“Not only are we struggling to stay up, we are also struggling to reach the record low points total.
“With the squad which is there at the moment, although there are some good guys who are clearly committed, there isn’t the spark which is needed.”
The former Standard Liege boss was widely backed by Blackpool supporters after the previous season, during which they were overseen by Paul Ince and Barry Ferguson, who’s tenures were difficult to say the least. His support was increased — if it wasn’t large enough already — when Oyston approached then Burton Albion boss Gary Rowett in September — while Riga was still in charge at Bloomfield Road. It was a disrespectful and unprofessional move by Oyston, who, at the time, angrily accused Riga of being unprofessional for apparently taking a week off to visit his native Belgium.
In the summer, up until as late as August, Blackpool had only registered eight players, and despite bringing in a flurry of players, they were unable to fill the bench for their first fixture against Nottingham Forest, instead bringing in two youth players to make up the seven. The lack of squad numbers meant that Riga only had one pre-season friendly, a 4-0 win at lowly Penrith, as the club had to cancel their tour of La Manga in Spain. A lack of quality players has been the main issue surrounding the Oyston’s reign. The squad is clearly not good enough to compete in such a gruelling league, and after just one win in fifteen games, it would take a miracle to escape the almost inevitable drop down to the third tier.
Despite the achievement of reaching the Premier League earning the Lancashire club an enormous cash injection, it is blatantly clear that the financial resources were barely applied to the football side of the club, with unproven players and loans keeping the club running to a bare minimum. This has resulted in a series of (understandable) protests by fans, the most recent coming on Sky Sports in the game against Cardiff, where the club ran out eventual 1-0 victors.
To make matters worse, former boss Paul Ince was sacked following Blackpool’s 2-0 defeat to then bottom side Barnsley back in January, reportedly via text message. Unconfirmed reports claim that the same method has been used for Riga’s dismissal. If these reports prove to be true, it not only shows what a dishonourable chairman Karl Oyston is, but that his cowardly tactics know no boundaries.
Back in September, Riga’s assistant Bart De Roover told the BBC that he left the club after complaining about the evidently poor facilities and treatment by the club, adding that he had ‘worked unpaid’ and was not on a contract. Oyston reacted by slyly saying that he belonged in the ‘Belgium’s second tier’; a remark that De Roover has since responded to, claiming that he has never been so poorly treated by a football club.
Despite Riga overseeing Blackpool’s worst ever run of form, he was up creek without a paddle, and his firm stance against the shameful Oyston regime sees him leave with his dignify intact, and he will be admired by many fans for years to come.
So where does this leave Blackpool? Most fans have already written off the club’s chances of survival and instead dedicating it to fighting back against the tyrannical owners.
Former Birmingham City manager Lee Clark, who is ironically being replaced by Gary Rowett, is odds-on to take charge at Blackpool, which, judging by his record in the West Midlands, fails to get many people’s spirits up. At this current time, there are no planned demonstrations but you can bet your bottom dollar that the Blackpool faithful will find a way to make themselves heard. Despite Blackpool’s owners playing down the situation, the message has been conveyed not just nationwide, but internationally.
Karl Oyston spoke to talkSPORT on Monday evening, as he has done on many other occasions, but provided little other than playing down the prospect of a fan takeover by club president and minor shareholder, Valeri Belokon, who recently claimed that he is planning on taking the Oystons to court and is looking to become a majority shareholder — a possibility Seasiders have welcomed with open arms. When asked about the club’s finances and bringing in Riga, Oyston stated that he was ‘head of the company’ — a quote that sums up Oyston as chairman; he sees the club as nothing more than a cash cow, he simply does not view the club in the same way as the thousands of passionate fans and he doesn’t care just how deep he has sunk the knife into the supporters, either.
Oyston blamed Riga for the players he brought in and the squad he assembled, when in truth, the Belgian had very little to work with — and Riga isn’t the first to speak out about this. The man who guided the Fylde coast club to the top flight, Ian Holloway, claimed that Blackpool’s Premier League legacy was ‘some new sprinklers’, while former Blackpool stalwarts have also spoken out against the chaotic functioning of the club over the summer.
Blackpool face Ipswich Town at Bloomfield Road on Saturday, where there is to be an understandably low attendance, yet those who do attend are expected to offer plenty of support for former boss Riga and club president Belekon.
A run of just four wins since November 2013 has left the club in tatters, and the future of the club now appears to lie in a lower league. |
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Thread | Brian Flynn doesn't look so bad now!!
at 17:21 25 Oct 2014
I just wonder if Flynn had been given the job (bearing in mind this was muted in May) if things would have been different. In the end did fan pressure on Oyston to give Riga the job cost us more dearly than if KOKO would have gone with his man? |
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Thread | Frustrating
at 08:05 22 Oct 2014
Another team who are in the top six who didn't embarrass us and yet we got nothing from. You can go through the entire top six and none of them have shown us up and yet we've got 3 points from 18.
Riga needs to be tapping in to the loans market sooner rather than later and bring in a striker who can take the chances we are creating. |
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