OUR YOUTH SIDE TOUGH IT OUT

BEING injured means I have some time on my hands so I took the chance to have a look at our youth team this week - not a pretty sight!

If the Blackpool first-team is struggling at the moment - having lost three home games in a row and getting sucked back into the relegation dogfight - then the youth team are in desperate trouble.

This season, they've lost 6-0 to Stockport County, 7-1 to Port Vale and 10-1 to bitter rivals Preston.

Coach Gareth Barker has plenty of ideas up his sleeve to change their fortunes. When I saw them, he made every player wearing white socks, rather than the regulation blue, go in and change.

Then I was amazed to see him make them do 10 press-ups every time they gave the ball away. After about five minutes there were only two players left standing and that's only because they were hiding from the ball!

I've loved watching and listening to the verbal jousting between Jose Mourinho and Alex Ferguson as they battle it out in the Champions League.

Mourinho's story about how he told a naked Frank Lampard he was the best player in the world was fantastic and shows not every manager has to be a robot.

Think

All we usually get are the likes of Gareth Southgate saying how unlucky Boro are every week or Arsene Wenger promising us that his young guns will come good¿ eventually.

It's the same with players; every interview seems to be the same. How tedious does it get when a new manager comes in and all the players come out and say how great he is and how much things have improved.

After one training session at Portsmouth, David James was singing new assistant manager Brian Kidd's praises, and saying how much better organised Pompey were now. Crazy!

Sometimes you just want a player or manager to come out and say what they actually think. Imagine Southgate coming out and saying: "Actually, I made a mistake signing Alves, because he's not very good."

I'm not completely innocent. Earlier this season I was interviewed on Sky after a game and I came out with priceless gems like 'we take each game as it comes' and 'it's just great to pick up the three points'.

Even my best friends were calling me cliché boy after that.

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