Shrewsbury Town 1 Blackpool 0

Scorer: Lowe (3 mins)

A WEEK may be a long time in politics, but three days can seriously damage hopes in football.

The Seasiders' defeat last Saturday at Shrewsbury, and Rochdale's win on Monday night, pushed Blackpool into tenth position and put Rochdale within one point of a play-off place with a game in hand.

Consequently the re-arranged game between the two clubs at Bloomfield Road tonight (Thursday) has now become crucial. A win, and promotion is still possible. Anything else and it's probably all over, although the continuing uncertainty about disciplinary sanctions against league leaders Chesterfield could provide another factor in the equation!

If Blackpool fail to reach the play-offs the finger will inevitably point at the number of defeats, which incidentally at 18 are not far off the total defeats for bottom-of-the-league Torquay.

But equally important in Pool's downfall is the complete failure when it comes to the big games.

The match at Shrewsbury was typical. Steve McMahon's men were once again faced with a game they had to win. Yet once more they failed to take any points from poor opponents.

Blackpool are looking like an ordinary side, short of ideas and with time running out.

McMahon was confident before the game, stating that his team would bounce back from the previous week's disappointment and that squad confidence was high. Brian Reid, Lee Collins and on-loan Richard Walker all returned to the starting line-up, replacing Danny Shittu, Phil Clarkson and Brett Ormerod.

But the changes had little effect on Pool's performance and the Seasiders got off to the worst possible start at Gay Meadow. Shrewsbury won a corner after three minutes, taken by Ryan Lowe. Centre back Andy Tretton returned the ball to Lowe and the Scouse striker smashed it into the top corner for his third goal of the season.

Blackpool's best chance of the first half went to big John Murphy when he attempted to loop the ball over Shrews 'keeper Paul Edwards. Shrewsbury had few chances of note and were happy to sit back and keep Blackpool at bay. The main incident before half time was a terrible lunge by Seasiders' skipper Ian Hughes on former Sunderland youngster Sam Aiston. He received a yellow card for his troubles, but it was to get much worse for Hughes in the second half.

Despite the lion's share of possession after the interval, the Seasiders failed to break down a stubborn Shrewsbury defence. And by the 65th minute it was more or less game over for Blackpool when skipper Ian Hughes tripped Sam Aiston for the second time and the Welshman received his marching orders.

The introduction of Brett Ormerod breathed new life into the Seasiders and he went agonisingly close to an equaliser late on. With keeper Paul Edwards in no man's land Ormerod had a near open goal to aim at, but somehow his shot hit Gareth Hanmer and bounced to safety.

This should have been the end for Blackpool's play-off ambtions but, amazingly, all three play-off rivals failed to win their respective games last Saturday. So there is still hope.