Pools give themselves a pain in the neck

Hartlepool and their fans are getting stiff necks at this stage of their see-saw season as they wonder whether to look behind them and down the League One table, or in front at the teams at the top end. A deserved home win over Charlton after a poor performance in the 4-1 defeat was a great way start a run of three consecutive home games but underlined the team’s inconsistency.

They are better than they looked for most of the game at Brighton, and they proved it by thoroughly deserving to beat a “big-club” team with promotion ambitions.
To put the win into perspective, Charlton had won their previous four games.
Andy Monkhouse looked back to something like his best behind an attack pairing of James Brown and on-loan Ryan Donaldson that posed problems for Charlton all night, and it was Monkhouse who got the first-Half breakthrough as he blasted in the rebound after Evan Horwood’s free-kick hit the underside of the bar.
Nathan Eccleston levelled soon after half-time, but the game was just over an hour old when Gary Liddle headed in another Horwood free-kick for the win.
Not surprisingly, Mick Wadsworth was happy with the points but with those two other home games coming up, he told the Northern Echo: “I'm greedy - I want nine points from this run.
“But the important thing is to put performances back-to-back and now we look at the tiredness and strain on the players before we take on MK Dons on Saturday.
“There was never really a period when they were on top, We were generally the better team.
“I'm thrilled for everyone - it was a really good game at a high-tempo and we deserved this win.
“Excellence is simplicity done well and that's what we did tonight.''
The Echo reports that Antony Sweeney was being watched by Bore-o assistant manager, Poolie Mark Venus, and he had a good game again wide on the right.
But he wasn’t the only one to play well – this was the sort of performance that saw Pools beat Peterborough and Brighton at the Vic, not the return fixtures when they lost heavily.
Which one will we see against MK Dons on Saturday and Southampton next Tuesday night?
If it’s the winning Pools in both games, there’s only one way they’ll be looking in a week – and that’s up.