Lack of intent, a wasted opportunity and worrying times: Blackpool's league woes continue with Watford defeat

With fans rejuvenated and re-energised by last week’s emphatic cup win and the club’s impressive transfer dealings, there was plenty of optimism in the air ahead of Saturday’s trip to Vicarage Road.

The wrongs of Blackpool’s summer recruitment had been put right inside the first two weeks of January and the dismantling of Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup resulted in a flurry of support for under-fire boss Michael Appleton.

He’s here to stay, so now is the time to put any concerns to the side, rally round and back the players from the terraces to help ensure the Seasiders maintain their league status – that seemed to be the general consensus.

But to do that, Appleton and his players had to hold up their end of the bargain and against Watford, I’m not entirely sure they did that.

Lack of intent

Given the aforementioned swathe of positivity, I expected Blackpool to go on the front foot and take the game to the Hornets.

Yes, Slaven Bilic’s side were fourth in the table prior to kick-off – now third – but their squad is completely decimated by injuries at this moment in time and their form is patchy at best. Besides, the Seasiders had already beaten them 3-1 at Bloomfield Road earlier in the season.

But the visitors – backed by an impressive following of 1,500 or so – displayed a worrying lack of intent.

From early into the game it felt like they were here to play for a point or snatch a smash-and-grab win at best.

If that had transpired, absolutely brilliant! Given Blackpool’s winless run, who cares how they get back to winning ways?! We just want three points and we want them now.

But there’s just one slight problem with that approach in that to win a game, you have to create chances and look like scoring and Appleton’s men failed to do that.

There are ways to lose football matches, especially when you’re down at the wrong end of the table and fighting for your life. You can either go out swinging after a 12-round slobberknocker or you can lose with a whimper having barely laid a glove on your opponent or, in this instance, fail to make the goalkeeper work.

Even if Blackpool had held on for a point, I still would have been frustrated with their approach. Drawing games isn’t really good enough.

That seemed to be the game plan though, to frustrate the hosts and produce a scrappy, stop-start affair. The whistle-happy referee was certainly only too willing to help with that endeavour.

But, aside from incessantly knocking it long to Gary Madine, Blackpool seemed hellbent on wasting time and winding the clock down from as early as the first-half, which just made no sense. Where was the sense of urgency and realisation of their perilous position in the league table?!

Wasted opportunity

Watford are a talented side, of course, and they boast an expensively-assembled squad when all of their players are fit. But I did get the feeling Blackpool were paying them far too much respect.

In fact, the home side weren’t up to a great deal themselves and, as the second-half wore on, it became increasingly obvious the win was there for the taking. But Blackpool failed to read the room and never showed any intent of going for the jugular and grabbing the bull by its horns.

The only man who did that was Slaven Bilic, who acted swiftly after witnessing a drab, flat first-half by making a double change at half-time. A further two subs came on midway through the second period.

Appleton, by comparison, failed to act until it was too late, introducing top goalscorer Jerry Yates off the bench straight after Watford’s opening goal. It was clear to everyone in the stadium of a tangerine persuasion that a change or two needed to be made a good 10 to 15 minutes before.

Lo and behold, it was one of Watford’s substitutes Tobi Adeyemo who broke the deadlock 18 minutes from time, steering home from close range after Chris Maxwell had thwarted Matheus Martins, another to come off the bench.

The game was put to bed in calamitous fashion three minutes from time when Ismaila Sarr slotted home a penalty after Maxwell had poleaxed Martins in the box to compound Blackpool’s misery.

Worrying times

We all hoped and prayed last week’s cup win wouldn’t be a false dawn, but you can’t get away from the stark truth of the matter. The numbers don’t lie. In fact, they make for terrible reading.

A tally of four points from a possible 30 is a truly miserable run that stretches back to October. But if we look at the season overall, it’s still only six wins and 26 points from 27 games. Replicate that points tally over a 46-game season and it will leave the Seasiders with just 44 points, which will be nowhere near enough to stay up.

It feels like not only are the excuses beginning to wear thin, they’re almost running out entirely.

If the feel good factor completely vanishes with a defeat in the six-pointer against Huddersfield Town next week, I dread to think what the repercussions will be – both for Appleton and Blackpool’s league status.