Match Preview: Hartlepool United v Bristol City

By Albatross
January 23 2004

Hartlepool United face Bristol City on Saturday in a game that looks sure to be a hard contest. City are on form at the moment, and have some notable results away from home against some of the top sides in the division; Pools will need to be on their game to take anything from this one.

Bristol City's form over the last couple of months has been good enough to lift them into pole position for a playoff place; they are currently in third, eight points behind QPR but four ahead of Port Vale and Barnsley, who lead the chasing pack.

The story of their season - one where many, me included, thought they would be heading for the title - is one of a disappointing start followed by a major recovery. After hammering Notts County 5-0 on the opening day, they won just one of the next six games - including a draw against Pools - and a home defeat by Port Vale meant that they were in mid-table - with a few people questioning Danny Wilson's ability to do the job. Arguably though their season changed after this result; they faced two of the toughest tests in the division in the space of four days at the end of September, coming away with a 1-1 draw from QPR and then beating Plymouth 1-0 - the league leader's only home defeat so far. Since then they have lost just two league games - against Wycombe and Blackpool, both away - and are currently on a run of five successive league wins.

Dig a little deeper though and this run of form becomes slightly less impressive. Three of those wins have come against teams in the bottom five - Stockport, Chesterfield, and Notts County - while the others, against Brentford and Bournemouth, both came against sides currently in the bottom half.

Nevertheless, City look certain to provide strong opposition for Pools - also to their credit is a 4-1 away win at Brighton.

Leading scorer so far this season is Lee Peacock - scorer of the goal in our draw at Ashton Gate - with 13 to his credit; he is likely to be partnered up front by Lee Miller (seven goals). Watch out too for young forward Leroy Lita coming off the bench - despite having started just once in the LDV Trophy, he has scored seven goals for the club over the last two seasons as a substitute. Midfielder Marc Goodfellow has just been signed from Stoke, and has scored in both his appearances so far. Also in midfield, look out for Aaron Brown and the experienced Brian Tinnion - 36 in March, but still going strong. City will though be without Luke Wilkshire, the Australian is on International duty in an Olympic Games qualifying tournament.

There will have to be a reshuffle at the back for City, with Tony Butler suffering from cracked ribs; although it's not certain that the former West Brom centre back will miss the game, he looks unlikely to be fit and Matthew Hill may move across to partner Danny Coles, with Craig Woodman or Mickey Bell coming into the side on the left. City look set to play their normal 4-4-2.

For Pools, I suspect the same eleven will start as against Tranmere - though there will be changes on the bench. We really missed having a genuine striker amongst the subs, and with Robinson recovered from his illness that may well be who gets the nod. Boyd's alarming weight gain seems to have ruled him out, and he'll need to knuckle down in training to prove to Cooper that he's worthy of another chance.

Bristol are bringing a good following up to Pools, and hopefully that means our attendance will be closer to 6,000 than 5,000. A good performance will be required though, especially if we want to maintain our own playoff challenge. The Bookies seem to make us slight favourites for the game, but I'm going for a 1-1 draw - Eifion Williams to hit the net again for Pools.