Preview: Luton Town v Hartlepool United

By Albatross
October 8 2004

It's another meeting with former boss Mike Newell for Hartlepool United, and against the expectations of almost all Poolies the monobrowed one is making a success of his job with Luton Town. Can Pools throw a spanner in the works, or will Luton maintain their 100% home record?

Luton's form has been nothing short of spectacular so far this season; after eleven games, they sit well clear at the top of Division 2 with 29 points, seven ahead of Brentford in second place. The only blemishes on their league record so far have been draws away at Sheffield Wednesday and Tranmere, although they have gone out of both the Carling Cup and LDV Trophy at the first hurdle. Their home record is highly impressive although not exactly promising supreme entertainment: five wins out of five is hard to argue with, but they have yet to win by more than a single goal with just seven scored and two conceded. They've been doing just enough at home then, and with their defence obviously feeling mean Pools attack will have to be on top form to get much out of them.

Newell won the first Manager of the Month award of the new season and was close to winning the second; at Pools this was the point where everything started to fall apart (remember the March and April that followed January and February?) but this time he's got the backup of having Mick Harford as his assistant rather than Kevin Sheedy and there's nothing to say that the Hatters are about to hit the wall.

Almost inevitably, leading scorer so far is former Poolie Steve Howard - who's already been offered a new contract by the club - with five goals, but he hasn't actually hit the net in his last six appearances and sat out last weekend's game at Tranmere through suspension. On-loan Rowan Vine has been helping make up the defecit by weighing in with four goals, and Ahmet Brkovic has hit the same amount. Additionally, Newell has increased his available firepower by re-signing Gary McSheffrey on loan from Coventry. McSheffrey had a productive spell at Luton last season before returning to Coventry where he seemed to have made a breakthrough; he scored 12 goals in Div1 last season to add to the nine he bagged for Luton, but has failed to score so far this season for either club.

There's something of an injury crisis in goal though, where Marlon Beresford, Dean Brill and Rob Beckwith are all struggling with injury; this means that Slovenian keeper Dino Seremet (two starts in his Luton career) will only have a 16 year old from the Youth Team as backup.

As far as Pools are concerned, the main team news seems to involve our two loan signings. Martin Woods is unavailable after being called up for the Scotland u19 setup, and although Alan Pouton will probably play, it's going to be his last game for Pools as Gillingham have refused the club's approach to extend his loan. Whether Pouton may rejoin us later in the season remains to be seen, but his performances have steadily improved during his time with the club and it's a move that both Pools and the player reportedly wanted to extend. Tony Sweeney sits out the last game of his three match suspension and will probably return in place of Pouton next week.

It's a pretty safe guess that after turning in a good team performance against Hull, Cooper will not tinker around with the team unless he has to. The problem facing the Pools boss is that while our home form has continued to be solid, away from Victoria Park we simply haven't cut the mustard - our win over Huddersfield remains the only occasion this season where we have picked up points away from home. Going to a side with a 100% home record is hardly a good sign then, but with Pools having shown signs against Hull of recapturing last season's form I think we have at least a fair chance or earning a draw. 1-1 then, Boyd for us and - inevitably - Howard for Luton.