Midweek Outlook (25 Jan 2011)

   Blackpool vs Manchester United  

Blackpool reminds me of debutantes in the likes of Charlton Athletic, Wimbledon and Ipswich in the past where they jammed themselves at the top of the Premier League table early in the season shocking everybody.

Just when we are always under the impression that noob clubs are expected to struggle at the bottom-end of the club, these few exceptions started scalping big clubs from the get go.

However, as it is with all the past clubs, and I have mentioned time and time again, their shock victories were only because of the element of surprise. Incumbents who have never played these clubs before, did not know how to handle them. Get the tactics wrong and it's the wrong end of the the game outcome for them.

Unfortunately, fairy tale runs only last a little while as the following factor sets in:

• Other clubs will eventually figure you out and have the right tactic to lock you down. Most of these debutantes are one, at most two, -trick ponies. Even the big boys are not spared. Just look at Chelsea and their shocking fall from grace this season. What happened? Simple. Ancelotti just isn't that good a tactician as compared to Fergie, Wenger or Mourinho. The Italian lacks creativity and ideas.
  
• Clubs coming up from the Championship League are mostly smaller clubs relative to the big boys in the Premier League. Here we are talking about resources and squad depth. As fatigue sets in, injuries and suspensions piling up, the smaller clubs lack the luxury of a deep squad rotation. Look at ManUtd, plagued with injuries right from the start of the season. They struggled all the way until now and yet still managed to hang on to the top of the table.

So here we have Blackpool who started off the season at the top of the table only to slide to the bottom half after losing 4 consecutive games.

Charlie Adam just handed in his transfer request which is likely to drive the morale of the club even further down towards the abyss. The transfer window closes on 31 Jan 2011 which is just a mere 6 days away. Either Charlie plays today or never for Blackpool again, unless of course, he is able to do a Wayne Rooney 180 on this one. Still, I doubt Holloway will field Adam today. You end up with a player less if you put one with no heart onto the pitch.

Over at ManUtd, Park is doing well in his international swansong over in Qatar for the Asian Cup. The Korean captain will received his 100th cap today in their semi-final game against Japan.

Ferdinand, Carrick, Hargreaves and Valencia won't be featuring today. I think Rafael will be back from suspension and Scholes should have a chance to get onto the starting sheet in place of Carrick.

Bookies are putting a handicap of 1-1/4 ball in favour of Blackpool and an optimistic decimal odds of 1.825 for ManUtd to beat it.

I have my doubts here as ManUtd has yet to completely shaken off the away-game jinx. We have played 10 away games this season so far and I need of remind that out of these 10, we only got 2 wins.

Granted we are at the top of the table undefeated thus far, it is an exaggeration when people liken the current ManUtd to that of the Invincible Arsenal of 2003/2004. Honestly, we are far from them by a mile. We are just lucky that the other teams imploded at the right time and the right place to push us up to the top by sheer dumb luck.

Every football preview on the web is predicting a huge win for ManUtd but I remain cautiously optimistic.

Perhaps a draw to go 3-points clear as we fail to beat the away-game jinx again.

JayWalk's 2010/2011 Track Record to-date (25 Jan 2011) :  P93-W50-L43

- Voxeros