Holloway: Drop would not finish us
Blackpool manager Ian Holloway has promised the Tangerines will not be heading for oblivion should they fall out of the Barclays Premier League on Sunday.
Holloway takes his side to Old Trafford knowing even a victory over champions Manchester United might not be enough to ensure survival should other results conspire against them. Some clubs have found the financial losses that come with relegation too much to bear, but Holloway insists this would not be the case at Bloomfield Road.
"We have been very clever with our budget," he said. "We have contracts to protect the club that other clubs don't. There is no danger of not being in existence. We will not go out of business."
He added: "What I will have are some very tough business decisions to make because we might lose this group of players. I can't do much about that. We are not in the same ball park as some of these other teams and what they can pay. That is just the way it is."
Not that anyone should approach Holloway to remind him of this if he ends up contemplating a return to the Championship.
He might be the most jovial of managers. However, if Blackpool end up in the bottom three, having already amassed 39 points, enough to keep them up in every season since West Ham got to 42 and still went down eight years ago, Holloway will be distraught.
"It will be the end of the world," he said. "It will definitely feel like that. You can't be a football manager, or a player, or have anything to do with a club and be happy if you go down. All you can do is let the dust settle and go on."
With out-of-form Birmingham facing an equally tough trip to Tottenham and Wigan gearing up to combat an aerial bombardment at Stoke, calculators might be required.
"One of my analysts was looking at the table the other day. I said, 'Good God. What are you doing? You are going to go mental'," said Holloway.
"My dad was an amateur player. He would say 'Our name is on the cup'. Sometimes it is. This weekend, we have to do something no-one else has managed this season. Beat the champions on their own ground."
