By common consent our Cup record is poor. I've felt it important in the past two seasons to progress as far as possible in both Cups for revenue purposes. This season it's imperative.
Stan surprised no-one with his team selection, the 11 who finished at Derby and thus put a smile back on our faces started. Papa and Taylor both back from international duty/unduty had to be content with a place on the bench. Make no mistake, this was a tricky game. Blackpool have done very well under Steve McMahon on the proverbial shoestring, and they had not conceded for 5 games. Fortunately we got at them from the start, as usual most things coming down the right with Little, Blake, and West involved. Weller and Grant were winning and passing in midfield, and although there were some neat touches from the Seasiders they were fairly toothless in front of goal, rarely testing Marlon (isn't it good to have a goalkeeper who exudes confidence?).
After some lovely one-touch passes Blake was upended on the edge of the box. We'd been in this position at Reading, and conceded on the break, so I wasn't altogether confident. Unlike Reading, Blake stepped over the ball and West hit the shot. The wall seemed to jump up, and Barnes was beaten in the centre of the goal - they should have defended better, but Fred's shot was hard and on target. His first goal for the Club has been a long time coming, but worth the wait for the importance of it.
Burnley then played football of the quality we saw in the first half of last season with Blake and Little both unlucky not to double our advantage. Blackpool were dangerous on the break, and on one occasion after Cox lunged in a better placed pass could have caused problems. Still, we were well worth our half-time lead.
Blackpool made two changes at the interval, Big John Murphy and the dangerous Martin Bullock coming on. We were suddenly on the back foot; possession was given away and marking slipped. All of a sudden the ball bounced for Murphy, but with the goal at his mercy, he passed it wide. Stan almost immediately baffled us by taking our two most influential players off, Blake and Little, to be replaced by Taylor and Moore A. Five minutes later and with still half an hour to go Moore I was replaced by Papa, a strange final throw of the dice at 1-0 up! What a master stroke! With almost his first touch of the ball he put us 2-0 ahead, against the run of play, and real route one stuff but who cares. Marlon's long kick was flicked on by Taylor, and Papa managed to hook it over the Seasiders keeper. Now clearly in the ascendency we went for the killer third. Before that we had a let-off when John Hills' mishit shot came back off the bar. The game was finally put beyond the visitors' reach 15 minutes from time, when ex-Bastard Simon Grayson needlessly handled in the box - he really had to stretch to reach it. For once an ex-Bastard didn't come back to haunt us (something to do with the fact that the crowd didn't call him throughout the game)? Apparently Dean West is now first choice penalty taker unless someone else fancies it. Gareth Taylor did, but his weak effort was saved well by Barnes to his left; he could only parry, and Papa pounced rather like Zamora on the opening day to seal a fine win.
Papa's goals reminded me of the type of finish you used to expect from Andy Payton. If he does half as well as him he'll be OK. Blackpool will look at that match and say they didn't deserve to lose 3-0. They've got a point, but how many times have we played teams from a higher level, and lost without really deserving to, so there's no sympathy there.
Attendance: 7,448.
Scorers: West 13, Papadopoulos 63, 75.
Referee: C Webster (Shotley Bridge).
Becko's Man of the Match: Tony Grant (looked good against Second Division opposition).
Westing (by musket and sextant)