Calm, Peaceful Thoughts.... or maybe not!

By Albatross
May 4 2005

Has everyone calmed down a bit then? Saturday's defeat against Walsall may not have proved fatal for our playoff chances - but the manner of defeat left plenty of Hartlepool United fans fuming. The boos ringing round Victoria Park only emphasised their unhappiness.

While some may have felt that booing the team off at half time was a little extreme, I personally find it hard to condemn those that did. By then Pools already looked well beaten, having been outclassed by Walsall and rarely looking a threat to our opponents. Cooper admitted he could have substituted any of the outfield players at the break; under those circumstances it's hardly surprising that a number of fans decided to let the players know of their dissatisfaction.

Coops after match comments indicated his unhappiness, and with reason. Whether or not Pools could have done much about the goals our opponents scored - and Joachim is a class act at this level - we showed little or nothing to indicate that we are in fact challenging for a playoff place.

If there was a saving grace for Pools, it was that other sides failed to take full advantage. With Bradford and Luton doing us favours, late strikes from both sides beating Bournemouth and Brentford respectively, Pools are still not only masters of their own destiny but go to the South Coast knowing that a draw will be enough. The problem is that unlike last season, a draw is not going to be enough for our opponents.....

Brentford have salvaged their hopes by beating Wrexham, and that means a defeat may knock Pools not only out of the top six, but even drop us as low as 9th: Bristol City and Huddersfield can equal our points tally if they win and we lose, and as City's goal difference is already better than ours and Huddersfield's is close enough to make overhauling us entirely possible we could find ourselves finishing as low as 9th. Our opponents meanwhile know that a draw would see them miss out for certain.

To be honest Pools only have themselves to blame for not already being secure. While you could argue we were unlucky at home to Huddersfield for example, and were outplayed in others such as Luton and Walsall, there was nothing particularly unlucky about the losses against Stockport and Wrexham or draws with Peterborough and Blackpool over the last couple of months or so. Arguably we could and should have won all of those games; instead we are now testing the nerves of every Poolie to the limit.

One thought that does occur is that we're now seeing how much we're missing Joel Porter. Boyd may have scored plenty of goals, but without Porter over the last couple of games we've looked somewhat short on ideas up front. Some of us wondered a bit about Porter this time last season; but with a full pre-season and growing confidence, he's become arguably our player of the year. He must be a defender's worst nightmare: decent pace, no shortage of ability, and the sort of drive and determination that mean he won't let you relax for a second and frequently will be tackling back to win the ball. His tally of goals for the season is more than respectable - and he's set up his fair share as well.

Stepping back a bit and taking a longer view though, even should we fail to reach the playoffs we've had a successful season. We've proved that last season was no flash in the pan, and established ourselves not just as a solid Div2 side but as one that has every reason to expect to be challenging for the top six. We've continued to develop and bring through young players, and with an encouraging performance from the youth team in Dallas and also in winning the Durham Challenge Cup the signs are that the talent shows no signs of drying up.

To finish, a word about rumours. There's plenty of them circulating at the moment, including reports of various players leaving and also Coops potentially going as well. While I'm not above passing on the occasional interesting snippet, pretty much all rumours should be taken with a large pinch of salt and that's what I tend to do. It doesn't take too much effort on the Internet to check on what's been said at the other end, and that can frequently reveal that there's about as much truth to the majority of them as there is coming from the mouth of your average politician - ie not much. While the Hartlepool Mail has been spectacularly inaccurate at times - I particularly remember last summer's claim that we were about to sign Eugene Dadi that came about two weeks after he'd signed a two year deal with Tranmere - they are far from the only offenders. If all the rumours that we've heard over the last eight months or so had proved accurate, by now Cooper would be managing at least two other clubs, Michael Mols would have been playing alongside Dadi following Adam Boyd's move to Sunderland (or was that Liverpool?) before Christmas, and Dimi would be lining up for Celtic and/or Fulham. Oh, and Chris Turner would be back as Manager or Chief Scout. Enough said?