Home hammering sets Pools alarm bells ringing
CT - work to do
By Charlie Summerbell
July 25 2010
Oops. Facing promoted Leeds United in a pre-season game was never going to be easy for Hartlepool United, and Chris Turner wouldn't have wanted it to be. But he certainly won't have wanted it to be a 5-0 defeat either, Leeds totally dominating a Pools side which clearly has a long way to go before the real thing in two weeks.
One of the few consolations for Pools is that Leeds were responding to a surprise 4-0 defeat at Bury during the week.
Pools were second best in almost every respect and Turner admitted after the game that there’s still a lot of work to do.
Like all managers whose teams have just lost a pre-season game, he reminded us – did we need reminding? – that at this stage results aren’t important, it’s the work-out that counts, he’d rather mistakes were made now than when the season starts, blah, blah, blah.
What he didn’t mention was that while Leeds are now a League ahead of Pools, the gap in class evident in this game at the Vic was too wide for comfort.
Leeds looked a class apart and it’s to be hoped the result, and the way Pools played, doesn’t damage the Pools morale, which was so fragile last season.
That was the one and only home pre-season game for Pools and Turner will be hoping things get better when he takes teams to Whitley Bay and York on Wednesday and Saturday.
After that, the season kicks-off at Rochdale on August 7 and Pools MUST play better than this.
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Best of luck for the new season.
Respect to Leeds, who will do well in the championship, but that was rubbish.
It was poor but best get those games out of the way before the real points are earned.
The real interest seems to be in whether there is any truth in a possible takeover of the club that has been mentioned on other message boards and the Sunday Sun over the past couple of weeks.
But the squad now is not as strong as the one that struggled last season.
So we are going into the new season on the back of some poor results in pre-season friendlies and the only new signing of any note is Evan Horwood.
Turner is hoping to sign others such as Paul Terry & Jon Macken but I'm not optimistic.
I'd rather sign nobody than players who are there just to make up the numbers. We've had enough time-wasters in the past.