Still Hope for Pools

Crucial Player
By Albatross
April 24 2006

We may have ridden our luck, but the net result of Saturday is that Hartlepool United still have a chance of avoiding relegation. If we're to do it though, it's probably going to require two wins....

After Saturday's performance, there remains hope that Pools can still avoid relegation, although the odds are still against us. We need other sides to drop points of course, but all Stephenson, Turner and the team can do is concentrate on HUFC's performance and just hope that other results go our way.

We need to climb two more places to get out of the drop zone, and even should we win at Brentford and other teams do us a favour it's unlikely that we'll go into the last game of the season out of the bottom 4. Our goal difference is significantly worse than the teams above us with the exception of Franchise, so unless the results get us seven goals closer as well as three points, the best we could expect would be to be in 21st place with Port Vale to come.

As I said last week, wins are now what matters - draws aren't enough. A draw at Griffin Park would still leave the scales firmly weighted against Pools - we'd need a spectacularly large win on the last day AND the results of the next two games for two or three teams to go our way. Even two wins may not be enough, although I have to say I think there's a good chance they would be. Going to a ground we haven't won at in our last ten attempts over a 30 year period, against a side desperate to grab vital points in the chase for an Automatic Promotion spot, a win would be a very special result.

Pools have of course got a history of taking things down to the wire in recent seasons. Looking at the previous six years, the fans have been biting their nails on no less than five occasions - though of course all at the other end of the table. Twice in this division and twice in Division 3 we've made the playoffs on the last day; and then of course there was the Title Decider at Rushden (who, ironically, look quite likely to return to Non-League at the end of the season unless they can also pull off a great escape). If we can keep it going to that last game, we will have reason to fancy our chances.