That this team will now "perform" before the second half of the season.

Yesterday was probably 2 points more than 99% of Pools fans were hoping for.

And with that in mind we now need to build on it, so nothing more than 3 points next week at home to Tranmere is expected. Without tempting fate there is no reason why we can't expect the next 2 home games to return 6 points. Southampton( 3rd home game from now) although in bottom 4 is still a difficult game. But Tranmere and Orient should give us some breathing space going into that game. Even the away game to Brighton can give us a point, so only Huddersfield difficult till Southampton. 7 points from next 4 games and we can go into the Southampton game with confidence.

We MUST build on yesterday and build next game , not 2 or 3 later. And we need to carry on picking up points prior to Boxing day, as from then to Febuary 20th sees us have 10 successive difficult games. Leeds(twice) Oldham, Gillingham, Charlton, MK, Bristol Rovers, Norwich, Southampton, Huddersfield. Only 4 of them are at home, now at the start of the season we may well have said that we wouldn't get many points from them games but when they run consecutively it's more important to get points going into them. 6 successive away defeats in those games is not out of the question. And Southampton away will be the 31st game of the league season, so any poor run then may well see our season's destiny written out. Though on the optimistic side it would mean possibly something of a "easy" run in with teams below us and around us to play.

So it's over to CT and the players. It's got to be now we start to play at our best not early next year, because even at our best next year in some of them fixtures points will be difficult to get.

Well done yesterday.