Time for Pools to prove Wadsworth right

Less than two weeks ago, Hartlepool United were facing three very winnable games against teams from the bottom half of the League One table, games through to the end of October that offered them the chance to make up for their shaky start to the season and get some valuable points on the board.

So far, with just one of those games left, they’ve messed it up.
After the home win over Peterborough, the outlook was a lot brighter and a trip to Leyton Orient shouldn’t have held any fears for them, with a home game against Bristol Rovers offering another chance to repair their home form.
But in both games they forgot to play for 90 minutes - a late winner for Orient followed by two goals in the last five minutes that gave Rovers an undeserved point meant Pools dropped three points in two games.
Now they face the last of those three games, and on current form a trip to bottom club Dagenham and Redbridge doesn’t look as easy as it might have looked a week or so ago.
Pools only have themselves to blame for the position they find themselves in – those three wasted points would have put Pools on the fringe of the play-off zone, but instead they are on the edge of the drop zone.
And that means they go to Essex on Saturday under more pressure than they really should be.
Caretaker/stand-in/temporary manager Mick Wadsworth told the Northern Echo: “We are playing well, creating chances, but we don’t have a natural goalscorer in the team, so we have to share goals out.
“I take responsibility and all we can do is work hard, learn from mistakes and get better for it.
“I don’t worry about the future – it’s getting the mentality that we don’t lose games at home and don’t throw leads away.
“That turns a reasonable team into a good one, and we have to do it. We want to get into the play-offs, it sounds stupid but that’s what I want.’’
Wadsworth has insisted for weeks that Pools are a better team than their League position and some of their results suggest, and though injuries to the likes of James Brown and Adam Boyd haven't helped, he has a right to expect the players to prove him right.
Pools need to start doing just that at Dagenham, where they need to get back on the right track away from home after the setback at Orient.