Can Pools rescue some respectability?

Hartlepool United's forlorn battle to turn this season's disaster into something at least approaching respectability won't have a better chance of some success than it has this month, with just one of the four remaining January games against a team in the top half of the League One table.

Rooted at the bottom, Pools are a long way from safety and every team they face is above them, oif course, but at least some opponents in the next few weeks are within sight.

The series starts on Saturday at Shrewsbury (8^th bottom), following by home games against Colchester (5^th bottom), Bournemouth (the odd one out at 7^th top) and ends with a trip to Portsmouth (3^rd bottom).

With only two wins behind them all season, Pools have no real right to expect to do much in any of these games, but they managed to win at Sheffield United last month,m and that means anything is possible.

Manager John Hughes admits the squad is woefully short of confidence and told the Northern Echo: “It’s about mindset. I’m caught between a rock and a hard place and I don’t want to put expectations on them. Since I came here, I’ve been very careful, but cautious.

“There’s a lack of confidence, so I’m letting them go out there and express themselves and be natural.

“If I put that together with my style of football then they will enjoy it. I’m honest enough to know one or two see it different and think it will never get us results – but as long as I’m manager here it will get done my way and I want to bring a style of football to the club that will get supporters excited.”

Getting excited is something that hasn’t happened to Pools fans, at least while watching the team, for a long time, that Bramall Lane result the one exception.

Let’s face it, they are relegated and Hughes knows as well as everybody else that next season has already started as he tries to put together a squad that can bounce back. The worst possible scenario is that Pools continue the current slide down into the depths of League Two.