Seaside Strategy - West Ham United Home

It had been billed in some quarters as a 'must-win' game, and while not quite that crucial, the home defeat to West Ham last night is a major set-back. With four straight defeats, three of those at Bloomfield Road, 'Pool now find themselves unerringly close to the bottom three. A win would have seen the Seasiders go 10 points clear of West Ham, instead of the four point gap that now exists. It's nothing to be ashamed of necessarily - after all some pundits would have had you believe 'Pool would have been all but relegated by this point - but from what appeared to be building up to a comfortable mid-table finish, Ian Holloway's men are now in a relegation fight.

Seaside Strategy - West Ham United Away

Quite how this game finished 0-0 is hard to comprehend for anyone who witnessed it, but in the end a point each was probably fair. Both teams will argue they could have won it, and Blackpool did have the better chances (plus the wrongly-disallowed Harewood goal) but a share of the spoils away from home anywhere this season has to be a respectable outcome. What do the stats tell us about the game?