UEFA don't give Blackpool an Ince

New Blackpool boss Paul Ince

Paul was there watching from the stands as he's done for much of the time he's been out of the game, but until over an hour had gone he was unable to watch son Paul who'd been on an impromptu tour of Europe.

Young Ince was placed on the bench by caretaker boss, and former Claret, Steve Thompson after he'd been forced to fly to Switzerland, arriving in the middle of Thursday night, get up early on Friday and face a seven hour trial as his outrageous UEFA suspension was appealed.

Thompson raged: "It's madness that people in so called high places can dictate to us when we can have our top scorer. Tom's preparation for the game on Saturday was madness. On Thursday he left training early to get to the airport, got a plane and arrived in the middle of the night in Switzerland.

"He got up at 7 a.m. on Friday morning, then he had a seven hour trial. He then flew home and eventually got to our hotel at 11:30 p.m. on Friday night."

That forced Thompson to place Ince on the bench for a game they lost 1-0 with Michael Chopra, a former Newcastle player, scoring the only goal. Now who would have bet on that?

That win moved Ipswich away from the perilous positions just above the drop zone and they now sit a comfortable four points clear of Barnsley who were otherwise occupied in the FA Cup.

Up at the top there were wins for the top three and also for Crystal Palace who moved ahead of Leicester into fourth place. Palace hit four against a struggling Middlesbrough who are still four points clear of seventh despite their recent results.

Watford also joined in with four of their own, and not a single goal from Matej Vydra. They won 4-0 at Birmingham in a week when the Football League, after Ian Holloway's rant, are looking into their use of loan players from parent club Udinese.

Surely the Football League are not looking at closing yet another stable door after all the horses have bolted.

We've a full midweek fixture list this week. Eleven of the games are tomorrow with one on Wednesday. The last week's results have seen us drop to tenth in the table, but it's so tight in mid-table with only four points separating 8th from 15th.

The weekend results and stats are below along with the midweek fixtures.