Battle of the Ibrox Old Boys

v Birmingham (Away) 23rd October 2010

The match against Birmingham wasn’t billed as the meeting of two ex-Glasgow Rangers midfielders, however, at the end of the day Barry Ferguson showed Charlie Adam who was best on the day, which proved to be a critical factor in the outcome of this match.

Midfield battle

Games are so often won in midfield and with Ian Holloway setting up with an unfamiliar 4-2-4 formation Blackpool’s midfield struggled to get their passing together as they moved away from their usual midfield of three. McLeish set his side out in a 4-4-2 with their two central midfielders split, in front of and behind Blackpool’s central midfield two in a diamond, something that caught Holloway by surprise.

If you look at the passing performances of Adam versus Ferguson then there is only one clear winner with the latter never misplacing a pass all game. A lesson for Adam to learn from. In fact Blackpool’s two key midfielders only had 51 successful passes all match and were still some way behind Ferguson.

Pressure

Another key to the Birmingham victory was the closing down they applied to the Blackpool players and you can see that they forced home interceptions high up the pitch whereas Blackpool failed to enjoy the same amount of success.

Gilks’ distribution

Another point to note is the way that Blackpool struggled to win ball distributed from the back. Matt Gilks when giving the ball short was perfect, however, the moment he kicked long Blackpool struggled to win the ball high up the pitch. Ten of his fourteen goal kicks failed to find his own player with Ben Foster only letting five of his nine go astray. Gilks’ distribution has already been raised as a key earlier this season by UpthePool.

A lesson learnt……

So Charlie Adam’s former captain at Rangers Barry Ferguson showed how to pass the ball with accuracy and placed value on retaining the ball which allowed Birmingham’s midfielders to win the day. Blackpool’s start to the Premiership season has been characterised by strong midfield performances, today the formation change seemed to upset their rhythm and something it seems Ian Holloway will be keen he and his team learns from.