Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ipswich Town have kept their man, and Blackpool go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 6.71, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Blackpool this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Blackpool close the window on a squad of their own making
3 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ayoub Aleesami was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Dan Sassi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Blackpool have made the call to Liverpool. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Blackpool can tell you which week it ends in.
Successful dribbles: 18. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Harry Stewart left the room before anybody could ask which.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Nobody at Blackpool will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Doncaster Rovers in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Dan Sassi and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Grant Smith
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Ruairi McConville is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Exeter City will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Blackpool were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Josh Bowler was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.30. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
8.05. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Grant Smith
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Blackpool can pretend not to have heard.
1 for Leighton Clarkson, marked 7.88, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Blackpool offered $23.0K; Bradford City said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Blackpool asked and Wrexham said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Dan Sassi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
In brief
The dugoutGrant Smith dropped after a run of poor form