Crisis club Pools not good enough

Only a last-minute Carlisle goal at Bury saved Hartlepool United from splumping to the bottom of the Leagure One table as they produced their latest insipid away performance in the rearranged game at Leyton Orient.

But current form suggests they could be there soon.

The Orient match was called off earlier in the season when Pools got caught in traffic and failed to make it to the ground in east London on time, and on Tuesday night there were a few who appeared to be elsewhere at times.

The 1-0 scoreline doesn’t look too bad on the face it if, but it could have been a lot worse as Orient created loads of chances, but took only one of them. That came soon after half-time when Ryan Brunt got the goal.

Steve Howard hit the bar with a header from a corner, but chances for Pools were few and far between on a depressing night, saved from being even more depressing when Carlisle’s late goal prevented Bury from getting the win that would have lifted them off the bottom.

Boss Neale Cooper stand accused of stating the obvious with his after-match comment: “It just wasn’t good enough.”

It’s been obvious for some weeks that Pools are not good enough and something drastic needs to be done to get them out of trouble at the foot of the table.

Cooper told the club website: “I’m really upset. On Saturday there were lots of positives.

“We weren’t the finished article,  but I was really looking forward to the game tonight.

”But from the word go we just got battered.

“If it wasn’t for Scott Flinders they could have scored more goals.

“I’ve asked a few of them what they are playing at and what there are doing for their own careers.”

Pools are now deep in crisis, with very few signs of them having what it takes to climb up the table, so a home game against fourth-top Crawley, managed by Richie Barker, is hardly a welcome break on Saturday.

The next game is at Bury.