“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Blackpool have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The deal that would have taken Karoy Anderson to Queens Park Rangers has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Blackpool with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Blackpool, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Blackpool close the window on a squad of their own making
22 in and 18 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.
The young player of the month award goes to a 18-year-old at Blackpool who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
“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.
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.
Marked 8.03 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad30 Aug 2027
11 new faces, and Blackpool are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
41 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Blackpool lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Blackpool, and it is not being withdrawn.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Blackpool training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ayoub Aleesami is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Blackpool will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
He is going to Bolton Wanderers, the club has $3.2M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Blackpool, and it is not being withdrawn.
Bolton Wanderers pay $3.2M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
The fee is $1.2M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Barnsley drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Leighton Clarkson and Blackpool agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The offer went to Everton this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“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.
The deal with West Ham United is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Blackpool have gone to Crystal Palace with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Blackpool, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Blackpool will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Blackpool, and it is not being withdrawn.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Hazeem Bakre has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Blackpool have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Plymouth Argyle have kept their man, and Blackpool go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Blackpool, another week without a signature from Cameron McGeehan.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Karoy Anderson is on it.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Leighton Clarkson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Blackpool, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jordan Brown trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Oliver Casey is on it.
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
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.
Goalkeepers do not get to make mistakes; they get to make goals. He made one, he knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
“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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
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.
15 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Blackpool lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Cameron McGeehan scored, was marked 7.63, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
A season average of 7.00 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Blackpool know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 33 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Up for the corner, and Jordan Brown delivers — 7.33
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Jordan Brown scored, was marked 7.33, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
At 21 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.
A 1‑0 win over Wycombe Wanderers, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Blackpool can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Blackpool, another week without a signature from Cameron McGeehan.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The words a physio says slowly. 42 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.68 for the rest of it.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Leighton Clarkson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
0‑4 to Reading, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.77 for the rest of it.
Charlton Athletic pay $830.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
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 0‑4 Harry Stewart left the room before anybody could ask which.
Blackpool have made the call to Birmingham. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Sam Chambers did not need any: 8.44, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Blackpool offered $5.1M; Sheffield United 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.
“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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Aston Villa have kept their man, and Blackpool go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“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.
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.
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.
7.86, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
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.
A 1‑0 win over Bradford City, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Blackpool told Leighton Clarkson something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout28 Dec 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.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Harry Stewart, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Karoy Anderson is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
It needed Michael Obafemi to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Cardiff City, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Harry Stewart was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Blackpool dressing room was either.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Blackpool, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Blackpool has been clear about where Hayden Coulson stands, which is more than many ever get.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Zac Ashworth’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Blackpool needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
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.
Marked 8.01 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Michael Obafemi 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 dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Harry Stewart chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
“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
“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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 12 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Blackpool until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Sporting CP keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The offer went to Bradford City this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Blackpool asked and Middlesbrough said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Blackpool, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Henry Cartwright has just signed for Blackpool, and for once the answer mattered.
Michael Obafemi 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Blackpool will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Blackpool, another week without a signature from Cameron McGeehan.
Blackpool have made the call to Leicester City. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Sheffield United have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
430 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ross Fitzsimons and Northampton Town agree another 2 years.
The phone has started ringing about Theo Avery again, and this time the name on the line is Doncaster Rovers. Northampton Town are listening politely and promising nothing.
24 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Conor McCarthy is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Middlesbrough have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Northampton Town have made the call to FC Metz. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Northampton Town have made the call to Gil Vicente. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Northampton Town, another week without a signature from Elliott Moore.
In brief
The dugoutElliott Moore knocks on the manager’s door