Lack of character leaves Pools close to crisis

There are massive question marks against the character of Hartlepool United both as a team and as individual players after their shameful 4-0 defeat at Yeovil. There’s no disgrace over losing at Huish Park nowadays, but there is disgrace in the way Pools folded in this latest game there.

A week after a home win over Southend that gave Pools and their fans hope for the rest of the season, they put in a spineless performance that had the usually-tolerant Chris Turner fuming.
The people who paid a lot of good money to go to the other end of the country to watch the game had every right to be just as angry.
In one or two of their other performances in what is now a run of nine away defeats on the trot, Pools have played well and been unlucky not to get some reward.
That was not the case at Yeovil.

Make no mistake, it wasn’t a case of Yeovil playing well, but almost entirely a case of Pools playing badly – the home team only had to be average to walk the game. If they had played well, it could have been really embarrassing.
Turner admitted he was lost for wards after the game, but he managed to tell the Northern Echo: “No-one has played well.
“I am looking now and thinking some players cannot play away from home or do what we expect from them away from home.
“We have to pick up and get back to work for next time, put this behind us like we did when we lost to MK Dons.
“We’ve lost nine in a row away from home. We didn’t have any threat and no-one played well. Simple passes went astray, I am so angry about it.’’
Turner says there will be changes for the game at Tranmere on Friday night, but that isn’t necessarily the answer. The players who were in the team at Yeovil have all done better than this, but the fact is that as a team and as individuals on Saturday they were rubbish.

There’s no point going through the Yeovil goals – Pools handed them the chances and the home team took them.
It was as simple – and as painful – as that.