Lee Carsley: Blackpool defeat not end of the world
LEE Carsley has insisted Blues’ first defeat of the season should not be considered ‘the end of the world’.
However, the skipper accepted Blues had to sharpen up their act with away games at Cardiff City and Derby County on the horizon, before QPR visit St Andrew’s.
Blues had high hopes notching their sixth win on Saturday against Blackpool, but played alarmingly and went down to Gary Taylor-Fletcher’s goal 70 seconds into the second-half.
“I thought we gave away a sloppy goal,” said Carsley. “Games like that, when it’s perhaps not going to be your day, you take a point. That’s something we’ve got to learn from. We were coming off the back of a good result at Bristol City and felt we could perhaps take it easy. But Blackpool came well organised and well set up.
“It was disappointing, but it was not the end of the world. There’s still 40-odd games to go, we will move on.
“There is still a lot of football to be played.
“The most disappointing thing was losing at home. We’ve got a great home record and it was disappointing to lose in that fashion.”
Carsley said this week Blues would be grafting on the fields of Wast Hills to return to action with a bang.
And the midfielder insisted that the 4-5-1/4-3-3 formation was not unworkable. Manager Alex McLeish scrapped it less than half-an-hour into Saturday’s game.
“The gaffer changed it, he wanted to get a bit of a spark, a bit more momentum going,’’ said Carsley.
“That system is so important, it gives a licence to the midfielders to get forward and for some reason everyone was coming towards the ball.
“It’s something we’re going to have to work on because when that system works, it’s an attacking system. It’s a fantastic system but for some reason we were perhaps playing at 60 per cent (of our capability).”
Try as they might with all their firepower on in the latter stages, Blues couldn’t conjure up at least an equaliser.
Carsley commented: “The more forwards we had on the pitch the less ideas we seemed to have.”
And starting – both halves – at a better tempo was another factor to address.
“We spoke about that afterwards, the fact that we started off terribly in the second-half, the fact they had a couple of chances.
“It’s having that experience and bit of know-how that sometimes the defence are going to have to play fantastic and we’re going to draw or win 1-0.
“But Saturday, for some reason, we started off sloppy.”
Meanwhile, Chelsea are set to sign free agent Mineiro, the Brazilian midfielder who played for Blues in a practice match a fortnight ago.
Mineiro, who was given his international debut by Chelsea manager Luiz Felipe Scolari, was due to appear for Blues reserves against Manchester United but elected to pursue other options.
They turned out to be Arsenal and Chelsea, with Scolari admitting he needed the former Hertha Berlin schemer due to Michael Essien’s long-term injury and now Deco’s thigh problem.
