WE continue our review of the weekend’s Prem action with the best pics from Arsenal’s easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy win over Blackpool. Reality bit hard for Ian Holloways’s side:

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Cesc Fabregas, Arsenal

Photos: PA

Arsenal season preview

What is Arsenal’s best XI for 2010-11?

                          

TODAY’S Around The Grounds photo essay features Bloomfield Road, the modest home of Premier League high riders Blackpool.

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The statue of former Blackpool player Stan Mortensen, outside Bloomfield Road

Bloomfield FACT (via Wiki):

“Bloomfield Road hosted its 1,000th Football League game on 10 September 1960, with a visit by Lancashire neighbours Bolton Wanderers. The game was the first to be televised in England. It was broadcast on ITV, billed as The Big Game, and three cameras were sited at the back of the Spion Kop. Coverage was scheduled for the last five minutes of the first half and the whole of the second. The Trotters won by a single goal.”

More photo essays of football grounds:

Portman Road

Prenton Park

Victoria Park

Home Park

Stade de Suisse

                          

By Ollie Irish

Crazy scoreline, crazy match. And briefly, Blackpool topped the league!

Wigan were about as bad as I can remember, relegation certs Blackpool were rampant and might have won by a couple more, though Wigan did have a goal wrongly ruled out for offside.

I wonder how many people bet on this scoreline, if any?

Looks like Wigan’s inconsistency will be the only predictable thing about them this season. Same story in 2009-10.

Photo gallery:

Match report

                          

By Ollie Irish

Big Scissors. It doesn’t get any better than that. It’s really all about the Big Scissors – that and the sponsored Lexus.

I’ve always wanted to open something using Big Scissors. But where can you buy them?

                          

By Ollie Irish

Some goals are all about the beauty of trajectory and nothing else. Like this…

In essence this is a long-ball goal, but Cohen’s extraordinary finish (100% intentional) elevates it to the level of balls-out wonder goal. Imagine the fuss if Messi or Rooney had scored it. Andy Gray would still be boring us to tears about it.

Previously…

No.5 – Arjen Robben, Man Utd v BAYERN MUNICH, Champions League

No.6 – Karim Benzema, Deportivo v REAL MADRID, La Liga

No.7 – Lionel Messi, Barcelona V Real Zaragoza, La Liga

No.8 – Benjamin Huggel, FC Basel V Zurich, Swiss Super League

No.9 – Maicon, Inter V Udinese, Serie A

No.10 – Samir Nasri, Arsenal V Porto, Champions League

                          

By Ollie Irish

Some more tangerine-flavoured celebration goodness for you:

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The open top bus carrying the Blackpool players makes it's way down the promenade in Blackpool, Lancashire.

                          

By Paul Sorene

Blackpool are in the Premier League, and all fans will be hoping they play them away on the Bank Holiday. Well, not those Arsenal fans with second homes in Tuscany, nor the Chelsea fans who like to be no more than 200ft from a Pret A Manger, and not those who have ever been to Blackpool before to revisit their father’s old haunts on an away day from Leeds (don’t ask). But everyone else will be hoping.

Blackpool may well pull off a few shock results next season. But there will no bigger shock than them arriving among the elite. This was their finest hour and a half for decades. Blackpool fans, enjoy. Eat yer heart out Inter Milan – this really was huge.

If you were there – you might well be here:

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Blackpool fans celebrate in the stands after the final whistle

                          

By Ollie Irish

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Blackpool manager Ian Holloway celebrates victory after the game

Photos: Mike Egerton / EMPICS Sport

Cards on the table – I’m gutted by this result, not because I have anything against Ian Holloway or Blackpool (not at all), but simply because I really, REALLY wanted to see Forest back in the top flight.

But fair play to Ollie and his Tangerine Army, for destroying Forest’s Prem ambitions with a superb counter-attacking display in the second half of this second leg. DJ Campbell scored a 23-minute hat-trick, which means Blackpool are only 90 minutes away from a golden ticket to the big league.

Billy Davies said afterwards that too many of his Forest players froze under pressure, and he’s right – Forest lost their composure, Blackpool took their chances. A glimpse of the Premier League can do strange things to players.

Looks very much like a Blackpool vs Cardiff showdown at Wembley, unless Leicester can find another gear. Would have to fancy Cardiff to win that big one, but then I fancied Forest to win this one, so there you go.