...that was utter shite and a lucky last minute winner doesnt change that

What our tactics were in the first half I dont know, but wealdstone sussed, surround Mani D and just collect the 2nd ball and you will be fine

Make no mistake we just burgled a home draw against a bottom 4 team and if truth be told we have been poor all season, though relatively solid

Dixon 6 nowt to do--the fact I think he got the assist sums it up
Stephenson 4 Poor and at fault for the goal, but thats what you get with kids
Parkes and Waterfall 6 -steady away
Ferguson 5 solid but nothing gong fwd

Sheron 3 - really poor footballer and did nothing without the ball, i dont see him starting too many games when people fit
Hunter 4 Poor game and lost midfiled battle
Mancini 5 not much if anything came off
Campbell 4 - not sure what Sarll expects from him playing the way we are
Grey 5 - see Campbell
Mani D 6 Boy did he need a goal , he must be pig sick of these 'tactics'

Subs

Feather 6 did ok, game was made for him though
SLoggett 4 - First game so give him benefit of that but looked like a headless chicken
Robinson 5 didnt do much, one thing I noticed is he is 1 paced which doesnt bode well
freeman 5 didnt have much to do, assume he didnt start as not fit--loses a point for stupid 40 yd shot

Sarll 3
Obviously playing to instruction, but if thats his 'plan' at home to Wealdstone then christ help us. His recruitment is mainly players suited to that I suppose, which brings its own problems
He said 'blame me' for the lack of signings....so his fault we had zero attacking options on the bench
He is VERY lucky we have picked up the points we have because the standard of football is appalling and HAS to evolve soon. He has some credit in teh bank for making us tougher to breakdown, but thats about it
long way to go but not seeing anything in first games to suggest we'll be worrying the top sides

Yeah it wasn't great, but it's his 4th match, give the guy a chance and the team ffs go watch man city

Very nicely put. Could not disagree with anything you said.

I can take getting beat, and not playing well--what I dont want is our entire game plan to be punt it to mani d and hope we get some scraps--which is what we did 1st half--and what we have done the first 3 games
We absolutely can go long sometimes, or even often but its like everyone is scared of the football

Some of the other games we had excuses (1st game, down to ten men, plastic pitch etc..) but we had everything set up for us today and our approach was the attritional shite and hope we get a lucky bounce approach---it has to evolve

As bad as anything I’ve seen that. Plan A was terrible, plan B non-existent.
Fair play to Mani for battling all match.
We were very, very lucky against relegation fodder though.

I think Sarll wants us to mirror the Wimbledon side of the 80s

8 pts from 4 games.
Rosetinters n realists n pessos in for a good bit ov Bunker debate.
UTP

First minute was good, press and win a free kick in dangerous position
The last minute was good, scored a goal through persistence

The 96 or so minutes in between were some of the most turgid unimaginative and boredline cowardly (in terms of using the ball) football I have seen in a long time

Would that be the ‘successful’ Wimbledon team of the 80’s

Well I was up in Hpool for the game.What annoys me most about the long ball is that if you boot it for the 10th time, and their no 2 wins it for the 10th time, wouldn't you think about doing something different? Irony was that we scored from a long ball.Featherstone made a massive difference, Campbell was crap (my Notts County supporting mate reckons he's great as an impact sub but not as a starter). Having said all that, unbeaten after 4 games and you hope a lot more to come. It's my wedding anniversary, I took the wife to the match. I've got a lot of making up to do!

Basically what I said about the Tamworth game. Nuff said except noticed that the crowd was down by a thousand.

The empty seats in the middle of the CK were notable. Aren’t they the corporate seats?

Not even the reference to the last minute winner, when we drew?

Agree 1st half, 2nd half NO!

Very

Did he not start most games for Crawley,Lge2

My first time seeing pools in league action this season and was very hopeful/expectant before the game,was really looking forward to it. First couple of mins I thought oh this could be good but after that it was just the same stuff served up season upon season. Yes I know it's early days and hopefully we will improve, we have to improve otherwise it will be another nothing season. We look fine at the back in general, badly exposed in the first half down the flanks but what do you expect with the formation we were playing, presume it was a diamond?. Seriously lacking in width and with a player like Mani in the middle we should be looking to get crosses in at any opportunity. It's no good lumping the ball to him when he's always being pulled and shoved by defenders. Whatever way we are playing it's not working for Campbell, he's being wasted. With the attacking threats we appear to have on paper id expect a lot more attempts at goal, dangerous through balls, getting in behind etc but it's not happening, is it a tactical thing or they just playing within themselves!. Highlight of the day is Mani getting off the mark, he deserved it for his graft today. With some work on the attacking third I'm sure we have the players to win games but things definitely need to improve.

Same here my first visit up to the vic this seaaon and agree to with most comments that plan A was not working but no plan b, hopefully this is still a work in progress and will get better

It was another seriously hard watch. There was a short period in the 2nd half where we actually played decent football down our left but it didn't last long.
Wouldn't say we were lucky to get a point on balance, their keeper had saves to make throughout ours had another quiet day. Stupid mistake by Stephenson led to their goal, even after letting the winger keep the ball in he should have dragged him down when he skipped past him, pretty sure most experienced defenders wouldn't have been done like that. He'll feel like shit but hopefully learn from it.
Sloggett and the kid from Derby looked a million miles off the pace to me.
Still unbeaten after 4 and a win on Monday will still put us in a good position.

Well I've paid on the day to watch those first two home games and I'm really struggling to see anything that will drag me back for a third, In fact I'd have enjoyed two hours ironing rather than that today, terrible watch.

Rose tinted specs off because Pools had the chance to build on a decent three game start by beating a weak Wealdstone team that had lost their three. But as in previous seasons they managed to make weak opposition look like world beaters!
What happened to the fit players that won the ball hunting in twos? What happened to the solid defence that did not concede? Sarll needs to rethink the lineup before Monday or we could be in for a right thumping at Woking.

We're difficult to beat for a change. That's good.

When season tickets are priced this high, what you need is some sort of excitement when you play at home to attract the missing 600 to 1000. The first two home games have been awful, infact all 4 games have been like watching grass grow. One lucky manager so far getting 8 points out of 12, i have a feeling this isnt going to get interesting anytime soon.

We basically hardly touched the ball in about 35 minutes of that first half, shocking were playing Wealdstone for christ sake, yet some will hang to the were unbeaten as a get out clause. Results are going to go down the pan playing like we are.

Ptid I agree
Sloggett especially looked like he’d won a raffle to play and I think he will be decent when fit

2nd half was pretty poor too with very very little created against poor opponents

I am off to throw myself in the marina. Why can't this foooking team do in our league what Man City do in the Premier.

Throughout? Their keeper made 1 save in the first half - at his near post from Mancini. He was under pressure for the last 15 minutes of the game.

That style of football doesn't warrant £22 to £23.50 values.
And I'd be astounded if it keeps 2pts a game up.
But let's see we're we are after game 12.
Hopefully not bottom half with under 3k crowds.

None of us know because that's why the bookies never lose.
Well that's my theory.
UTP

if only he did. they had wingers and were a threat going forward.

actually i think we will worry sides and flustrate them if they are trying to win games against us. we are hard to beat in the same way as we make it hard to win games. its exciting bringing in gary madine but more exciting if we had brought in a couple of wide men to supply ammunition for him, grey and mani d. what did we get a full back and a central midfielder.

Am I allowed to expect want us to win our next 2 games to kmock the stats up to pyd 7 pts 14.

Or will the injurys / suspensions / bad luck/ give the manager more time get knocked out.
It's only Braintree n FC Halifax

Are we still Gunna win the league then less than 6 pts is unaplicable.
UTP

Wouldnt surprise me if a few of our players didnt get injured getting off the bus. God knows what sort of team will be out for saturday.

If we dont win saturday then its been a fairly poor start to the season, need to pick up serious points before we meet the better teams.

The players are there - the team has not had the opportunity i dont think to actually have our best 11 out on the pitch. Charman being injured has buggered the plans too - thankfully it looks like the formation and setting for the start of the Woking game will work and got us opportunities and 2 early goals, wont always work against the better teams but was a damn site better than this useless long ball. Mani D doesnt work like that and simply by the time the ball is lofted back there isnt Grey or Campbell near him to lay off our bounce ball. We are not good enough i dont think to play exactly how DS dreams. Hes realising that now and i think we may see a change. Feaths twice has now made us better< say what you want but you cant not have him in the team unfortunately. Some games yeh, wont play to his strengths but if we want to play football and probably win games then he has to play for me ! Long long way to go yet and dont think we have seen the finished article. The 2 CBs wont last a season and this needs addressing aswell as Fergie at LB.
Get some wingers in and maybe try wingbacks too - Mancini has to play aswell for me. Loose Saturday and we can forget playoffs

Fergie has been desperately poor for a long time. Shame cos i thought he was fantastic under challinor.

think the starting 11 will be decent but not so the bench. woking showed that having a strong bench helps as we possibly would have held out if there,s was full of defensive players. hope we might see madine having the cotton wool taken off him to play some part of the game for at least 30 minutes.

defensively he,s one of the worst players on our books and not getting forward like he did in the past is making him look even worse.