We need to seriously look at our performances at the VIC. today the centre of midfield was once again the root of our problems with Sweeney and Jones losing possesion with abandon, missing tackles and putting in some woeful passes. neither player has played well all season, at least at home. To be fair Fredericksen hasn't looked any better. it must be frustrating for McSweeney and monkhouse to have to continually track back and win ball for themselves. The consequence of the above failure is that the front men never see the ball and the back four are under constant pressure. Peter Hartley's passing ability has to be seen to be believed, absloutely dire. The biggest improvement came with the advent of the three subs. Neil Austin looks like what he is a two footed fullback with pace, Bjornnson won more ball in 25 minutes than Behan did in the previous hour and you just knew Boydy would score. Hopefully with Clark fit we might be able to change midfield. Austin must start at Colchester.

it wasn't inept. We had more than enough of the ball to win the game. A lack of invention and ideas, yes but inept is a bit harsh.

It annoys me a bit that these clubs don't need to do much homework when they come to the vic. It's obvious that we lump balls forward. Any defenders who are 6 foot+ must love coming here!

Yes we should have won it but we didn't so what happens next?
Todays crowd was 3,300 with a hundred or so from Wycombe. How many will be back for the Walsall game especially if we fail to get a result at colchester.
We need to do something to push on at home, whether that means dropping Sweeney and Jones, but who do we replace them with?

We could replace Sweeney with the tealady

The best pass of the match was Peter Hartley's in the first half, long ball from the left, dropped into the penalty area on the right, for McSweeney to run onto, and nearly resulted in a goal.

The performance was absolutely dire don't forget Wycombe hadn't even got a point away from home before today. We are absolutely deluding ourselves if we draw many positives from today's shower of shit. The only players to come out with any credit from the starting eleven are Liddle, McSweeney and Monkhouse. One incident summed up our ineptitude half way through the second half......Collins picked up the ball in our half in ten yards of space and hoofed it with the outside of his boot into the Millhouse seats. He then turned round and bollocked liddle and Haslam!
Man of the match... what a fucking joke

Here, Mr Pete, do you go in the Millhouse terrace by any chance??

I do stand on the Millhouse Terrace amongst a significant proportion of so called supporters who are looking for the first excuse to turn on the team and the manager BUT you cannot get away from the fact that we were poor yesterday, I have offered my analysis of why in that not for the first time our two central midfielders were not at the races yesterday. The managers job is to manage and hopefully he will have seen what most people saw yesterday and will be looking to change things either via improved performances or changes in personell. After all he has told us there is competition for places throughout the team.

Seeing as you are a linguistics expert would you like to define specifically the difference between inept and poor? Get a grip yourself you pedantic moron

Fairly typical of your efforts "elvis" nothing of substance to contribute so you pick at other peoples efforts. Do you have anything sensible to say about yesterday's game? were you actually there? have you ever been to the Vic? As the Ladbrokes advert goes "Everyone's got an opinion, what'a yours?"

Oh. dear. Lord.

Good points Elvis. Why go so aggressive BP?

Thought he was a teacher? Good grief.

I'll tell you what, lets wait until we're down to sub 3000 crowds then see who's moaning. People pay hard cash to watch entertaining football, and in 4 league games we have failed to do that. Its difficult to get behind a team which has not doing the business in front of its own fans for the 4th league game running.
The negativity comes from the poor football on show, believe me, if we work our socks off and play a decent game the fans will appreciate it.
I hate all the booing, its embarrassing and obviously doesn't help the team but until we start playing attractive football its not going to change.

By not doing the business you can only mean because we didnt win. We deserved better against both Burnley and bristol Rovers, where in both games we played good football. If you consider some of the stuff played by Pools as POOR , in those games your hard to please. We were poor against Norwich, and ,yes , poor yesterday, but we got a point.

Of the 11 games played in League 1 so far this weekend only 4 teams picked up more points, (Gillingham, Bristol Rovers, Brighton and Walsall) 4 teams less (Millwall,Oldham,Tranmere,Carlisle) the other 13 all got 1 point.

Yes we were poor not inept, but on the whole the weekend wasnt to bad, once all the other games are looked at.

Now I'm not saying we have to start looking at other results yet but we sit 13th,the pessimists will say only 2 points from relegation, the optimists will say 3 points from the play off's. Come next weekend if we get a victory we will be on the same number of points as the team that currently occupy that position (Colchester)

Look at the current table, Norwich , Millwall, Oldham, Tranmere are all below us, 4 teams who many on here had pushing for the play off's, so compared to them we doing ok.

And at start of the season we were 10 points clear of Southampton we now 13 points clear of them.

Wycombe did to us yesterday what we have done to MK, Coventry, Gillingham and Oldham got men behind the ball and made it difficult for us to play.

2 brothers who probably a lot on here know and who have been going to pools as long as I can remember. Was talking to one of them outside millhouse yesterday, asked where his brother was, he said, oh he has a season ticket for boro this season !!! I asked why, and he said entertainment value at pools over last few seasons has been poor, I then asked him what time he was going into the match and he said, i'm not bothering, went to Charlton game and haven't bothered since.
We can be happy as much as we like but when we are losing 2 fans who would never miss a home game and went to quite a few aways then there's definitely something wrong.

Can anyone put their finger on it

At this stage of the season the league table is irrelevant, they shouldn't even bother printing it. What is for sure is that we have address this problem of not winning at home or else we are in for a season of struggle. We were flat, one paced, and poor yesterday. Confidence is an issue as after we equalised some players (Monkhouse mainly) really started to play and started to want he ball. Turner has been a having a go at the crowd for getting on players back too quickly, fair enough, but it's a two way thing you can't expect to labour through a game against an average side and not expect criticism. We were frustrating, the lack of options in midfield meant we played too long.

I believe we are close to being a decent team, all we miss is a leader in the middle of the park.

can you pass on a message to the brother who has started supporting Boro.....tell him he is a bounder!

No, people pay hard cash to watch Sky sports.

Football fans pay to watch their team and consider it money well spent.

Too true.

I support Pools, because they have been my team since 1963, as a result of an accident of birth. I sometimes wish I had been born in Newcastle or Sunderland or Liverpool or.........
But not very often. I don't demand entertainment for 90 minutes of every match from my team, I can even appreciate good play from the opposition now and again. I could never imagine myself going to the Riverside, even though I do live nearer to it than Victoria Park, for anything other than to see Pools play in the Championship or even League 1 in the near future, or the very occasional cup tie.

Elvis
Strangely i agree with much of your analysis in relation to the better players in the team. you certainly are capable of seeing the bright side of anything, a job as GB's spin doctor beckons. I accept all the positives put forward by your good self but here are a couple of negatives:
1. We have failed to win at home in four starts- five if you count Burnley.
2.Wycombe Wanderers gained their first away point at the Vic yesterday.
Despite my comments I do believe that Turner is taking the team in the right direction, the signings of Flinders, McSweeney, Behan. Austin and the two scandinavian lads has improved the squad immensely...................BUT it is not rocket science that a return of one point from twelve at home will be relegation form if it continues, or perhaps you believe that we can remain undefeated away from home all season?
You seem to be wound up about two things one the use of the word inept and two the fact that I drink in a rundown pub in Barnie with a few mates on a Thursday lunchtime. Get a life mate and incidentally I stand by my original statement that yesterday's team performance was inept and I have more than hinted at the reason's why, you seem to baulk at the word but not my analysis, do you think that Tony Sweeney and Ritchie Jones were operating well yesterday?

Dear me Elvis first you accuse me of aggression and then having read my reasoned responses and failed to muster any cogent arguments you come up with the hoary old chestnut that you "can't be arsed to respond" So much for intelligent debate that you seem to be suggesting exists only here on the bunker.

Come on Mr Costello - comments like that don't help things and really aren't needed. Everyone used rivals once upon a time. BP makes a lot of good points as does Mr LT, my personal view is that they are worrying a little too much but should we fail to win out next couple of home games the crowds will drop when the cold snap kicks in regardless of how well we are doing in away games.

We all know where the weakness in the team is - hopefully a loan player will be signed.....

Brilliant post john and kind of makes a mockery of his point

Elvis I didn't realise you were that Elvis!!! i am truly in the presence of Royalty and i unreservedly withdraw all criticism I have directed at you to date. Please accept my humble apologies your reverence. I had forgotten that you are all knowing about Pools and that your views are wholly sacrosanct.

Well thats me lost

1. extremely sacred or inviolable: a sacrosanct chamber in the temple.
2. not to be entered or trespassed upon: She considered her home office sacrosanct.
3. above or beyond criticism, change, or interference: a manuscript deemed sacrosanct.

Anyone can look up fancy words, it's not difficult.

The other BP was banned for his 'keyboard warrior' attacks on other peoples spelling and grammar on Rivals. Now my worst fears have come to light and he has surfaced on here. Please Mr I, use your powers.

If he was 2000 miles away he wouldn't be in China (isn't it more like 5000 miles?)
Unless you know a short cut.

Elvisaintdead,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,fails the irony test

Try telling that to the lad who has fooked off to watch boro.
Some people on here would like to go back to the olden days when 2000 was a very good crowd and whinging was minimal because we knew we were shite and so didn't mind the usual whopping.
I hate the empty spaces and I hate the foooking whinging as much as anyone, I want to see the ground bouncing like it was cooper days, the Luton night game etc...
Its dead now, half the lads from the millhouse corner are banned, some probably rightly so but some very harsh. Even the town end hardly muster a song.
We've lost nearly 2000 fans since those days and the only way to get them back and get the ground rocking again is by winning games.
The problem is people in Hartlepool are fickle, they want to see a winning team and if they dont they'll spend their money elsewhere.

Most Hartlepool people aren't fickle, they're just not interested in Pools.

He's a consultant actually ,top of the tree ..

We have the same problem at Darlo, most Hartlepool people arent interested in us

Seriously though, its a common problem more than likely caused by Sky top loading the Premiershite with money and coverage while the smaller clubs suffer.

If Pools were inept, surely Wycombe would have to be too,after all it was deadlock at the end.

Now assuming that Peter Taylor wasn't happy about no points at the end of their away games and designed a system to keep us out and hopefully hit us on the break, would that not also assume that Chris Turner was unhappy with no points at home and designed a system to try and score first, draw them out and hopefully go on to win?? Perhaps the systems cancelled each other out??

Or did he say,' go out and play shit?'

It looks to me that a few teams are suffering at home, and enjoying better success away. The kid at Stockport is top of the goalscorer charts with nine I think, but has yet to score at home.
There are forty six games to choose from in which to score points, at the moment we are getting them mainly away from home. The majority of our fans attend home games and see " entertainment" or "good performances" as winning/battering the visitors. As this is not happening they are getting frustrated and a tad worried. That is perfectly understandable, but it has to be addressed. We all, or most of us, agree that we are lacking in midfield and that an influential character is required to dominate that area. Turner tried to get such a man, Healy, but was thwarted. I think he needs to re concentrate his efforts and get us one.
Last week colin west said that we needed to get Boydy doing his business in or around the box where his tricks create openings. Someone in midfield with the vision and skill to play killer passes is required in order to get us into that situation a bit more regularly.

Message for Barnie Pete........you're giving us newcomers a bad name mate.
Message for the rest..............Don't tar us all with the same brush......please !!!!!!!

dont worry derwent. Youre my nailed on choice for newcomer of the year in the Bunker awards.

And your favourite tipple is ???

And your favourite tipple is ???

and your getting voted as twat of the year

Looks like doubles all round to me.......

AS IF I have won it before

Of course you have. One more win and they'll be naming the new trophy after you