Rumours grow of loan move

Another one?
By Albatross
October 4 2005

Messageboard rumours suggest that another player is about to leave Hartlepool United on loan - this time it's Gavin Strachan, with York the apparent destination. If he does head out there he'll be the second senior midfielder to go out on loan in just over a week.

*UPDATE 17:00 4/10/05: Since this story was published the club has announced that Strachan is indeed going on loan - but to Stockport County rather than York.*

Strachan's position is one of those for which there is plenty of competition - we have plenty of central midfielders, and even in the holding role we have other options such as Tinkler and now Stephen Turnbull, who has come into Scott's plans in a big way over recent weeks. Now, like Darrell Clarke, the word is that he's been allowed to head out on loan.

Should this go ahead, there would seem to be more to this move than Trigger's. Scott has since publicly said that Clarke still has a future at the club and that the loan move is as much as anything about recapturing match fitness; Strachan though has not been out injured and instead has been one of the casualties of Scott's decision to shake things up by leaving out some players he considered weren't earning their place. You get the feeling that a move away, even only on loan, may be the start of a long goodbye to Gavin.

Saturday's win won't have done Strachan's case much good either, after Turnbull played the full 90 minutes. Dimi, Nelson and Collins may have attracted most of the plaudits, but shutting out Bristol City required an all-round team performance and he played his part in that. While it may not have been exactly full of flowing football, and we were under the cosh for most of the game, the result is three points for Pools and that's hard to argue with - had we won or even drawn in similar fashion away from home during this time last season, we might have been considerably more comfortable by the end of the season. And our promotion campaign included numerous 1-0 away victories that didn't attract the praise of the opposing fans.

At home though Pools have to be more expansive against sides that as often as not will be looking to do a job on us in the same way as we did at Ashton Gate. So far this season it's something we have failed to do.

So now we have a break for a while, with this week's scheduled game with Gillingham postponed due to international call-ups. The fact that we go into this gap following a win will surely help the state of mind of those at the club (not to mention the fans) - can we build on it and start putting some results together? That is the £64,000 question.