Don’t mean it in an entitled way genuinely curious

They are a way smaller club than us in any typical comparison

Do they have a v rich backer ? Are they really well run?
Are we appalling run ? Having no luck ?

A bit of all of the above?

I don’t see many plausible scenarios where they finish below is this year, so do they deserve credit for being so well ran or do we deserve pelters for gross underachievement?

You have to start with 'Having no luck.' As far as I can see Solihull pretty much have the same group of players fit that they had at the start of the season. It would have been a terrific game if the same was true of Pools. We are already patched up to a ridiculous extent and have no strength in depth.

Do Moors? Tonight reminded me of the hammering we got off Torquay 3 seasons ago. The Gulls looked different class that night but a long season found them out to the extent that they missed out on automatic promotion and we edged it in the play-off final.

It's a perfectly valid question. They were first formed in 2007, brought a crowd of 15 to the Vic tonight and made us look like mugs.

I guess that it's down to that Solihull must be geographically/financially attractive to good football players. (and Pools' recruitment is just shite - it really is).

Like I said elsewhere, average crowd last season 1700, so they must be paying the money out and have relatively rich backers.
They haven’t built that team on the gate money.
The rate it’s going, the lower end of the football league will be full of sub 2,000 gate hobby clubs.

Hard work and a commitment to the manager, from those players.
On paper we have the more senior squad in every way, shape and form last night.

However, Neal Ardley, has his players drilled to defend as a unit and attack as a unit.
Askey and fans are blaming Injuries to players. What's happened to the days when a manager would have plan A, B,C,D,E etc. Playing to the strengths of other players.

1. Just proves how little training goes on behind the scenes and Askey and co are clueless, without Manici, Cooke, Wallace, Dodds and Lacey.

2. Askey doesn't trust the ability of the other players, so does the bare minimum for his wage.

3. Askey is pissed of with Kelly walking out to York and is thinking of his own future, as he seen now what Raj is all about. Aka, not interested in selling up, buying quality, but probably wants to sell Dodds, Cooke and Wallace in January.

4. Raj has said to Askey, "I want you to try and win the F.A Trophy and try and get to 3rd/4th round of F.A to bring in my cash."

5. A player is making life difficult for everyone like last season.

The list could go on and on. We'll never know really.

Or is it just that Pools are crap and we are a false positive being 6th with -1 GD.

Answer, we don't have a clue.

Gateshead must have a outstanding manager n players that rip there bollocks of every game with their sunday morning crowds.

I see they destroyed the mighty Oxford City last nite on there home advantage plastic pitch.

ZNB12,Neil Ardley is no longer with them he is now manager at York City.

My apologies, Andy Whing's.

I think the answer to the original question is that Solihull are extremely organised, hard working, do everything as a team, obviously buy in to what the coaching staff are drilling into them in training and get up the pitch in a speedy and effective manner, whereas we are disjointed, painstakingly slow, inconsistent, can't defend crosses, to name but a few.
Solihull are good at what they do, have a plan but what they have achieved so far this season isn't down to any sort of magic formula. Instead it's down to hard work, belief in what they're doing and sticking to it.
Football is a team game and they are a good advert for that. They've played a quarter of the season and twelve sets of coaching staff have failed to devise a plan to beat them.
They appear to me to be "in it together". That is something that we are nowhere near, or so it would seem.

I think people are underestimating the cost of long term injuries to first team players. Remember that we were relegated from league one the following season after almost reaching the championship at Cardiff, this was largely down to Boyd and Porter being injured for large spells of the season (so drew too many games). IOR where in a much better position financially at the time to make sure we had reserve players who could just fit into the team, unfortunately that is not the case now.

Solihull settled team from last year with one or two changes. Pools a shambles last year and in the process of a re-build hampered by injury crisis. Defenders keep making errors which suggests they are not good enough but cant be replaced.

Nail on head so well organised they made us look like total mugs, im sure they will do it to better teams than us. Our paper thin squad cant cope with these teams.

Gateshead tortured us at pools but we got very lucky, they will be in the top 3. How do they do it yet our fans seem to make excuses for why we cant. Yeah we lost two quality players, cook maybe a big loss too but we have had time to find replacements, what do we do? Watch the season go down the shitter raj style.

Totally agree, they were a strong well organised side who played well as a unit, the complete opposite to our shower. They didn't have any stand out players but there team work certainly stands out.

Cook might be back a little bit quicker if he wasnt partying on his dodgy leg at weekends, i know they need a life but it aint a good look.

They have a plan and stick to it, they are well drilled and there are no real stand out talents, just players given a role like Beck for instance.
Most teams can play like this but it needs a certain type of player who can work as a unit and maintain that discipline….most aren’t as they opt for the death or glory entertainment routine to please their fans, which won’t be as big a problem for them.
Would Pools fans put up their siege mentality and quick strike routine at home, I suspect not and not at most clubs either, but it works when done properly, but there’s the dilemma….but like I said, you have to have the proper disciplined players to use it.

It’s common sense, but it appears it’s in short supply.

Thing is snowy it wasnt just sit back and defend siege mentality, they played slick football, similar to us first few games, they are just a way better team than us. I think we are doing them a disservice.

I’m not doing them a disservice, I ‘m complimenting them for having a system that works…remember what we said earlier about getting points on the table, they’ve found a consistent way with fixed players…our team selection must consist of putting the players names in a bag and playing the first ten outfield players that come out…’Team Sheet Bingo’. Organised confusion with no apparent game plan.

I think we have just a great habbit of making managers look like mugs. Thankless job, but they dont seem to help themselves.

(Response to Billingham Poolie saying Solihull were the better team)

Askey said as much in post match interview. "The better team won", I think he said. Askey also commented on the goals conceded because individuals were "not doing their jobs". "Not staying with their man" was also mentioned in the same breath. Sounded a bit despondant. Probably reflected how most Poolies were feeling. Said Wallace was having X-Ray on his leg and Lacey had a cut close to his eye which opens up on contact so they needed time for it to heal. Hoping Wallace's leg isnt broken, thats all we bloody need.

Let's see how Solihull - and Gateshead for that matter - cope with long-term injuries to key members of their squads. If they're very lucky they won't have too - as Pools were in our promotion season a few years back.

Marcus Dinanga has 11 from 12 games for the Heed. It's no coincidence that the goals for Mani D have dried up now that he's getting no service from midfield - or from Fergie, whose crossing was dire last night.

They got two goals through very basic errors on our part last night, the first one in particular was outrageously bad, leaving all that space for their player to run into….it was basic stuff not being done at all and no one seemed to know who was doing what….Even with the injuries surely we need to stick to a fixed team and not be throwing everything into the ‘tumble drier’ and hope it turns out alright. There’s no organisation, it’s like a kick about at times.

Even JA says Moors were the better team.
And the injuries we are carrying at the moment contributed towards that
We all know that.
Yet their keeper pulled one out of the hat with that save, And they also cleared one off the line.
And both teams had other chances.
Goals conceded were really poor, And could/should have been dealt with.
Askey post match, Looked pissed off totally.

For me Solihull look like the 2nd coming of Sutton.

Sutton looked nailed on for relegation at the minute. Oh dear, what a pity.

The whole club is dealing with the hangover from last season and on top of that the injuries we have suffered. Not really fair to judge Askey as neither of these things are under his control. The only way out of this is patience (perhaps even beyond this season) or for Raj to ease the purse strings or sell up. I don't think he intends to do either so patience it is.

Well Raj may well start to regret not easing the purse strings when crowds are down to season tickets holders only. Please nobody tell me he has spent a fortune and we have a huge budget because I am sure we do not.

They were about long before 2007 (I lived in Solihull in a Company House in 1991) and there was an amalgamation with Moor Green, a club at similar level in the pyramid playing a couple of miles up the road.

They, of course, have the "selection" of much of the talent in the surrounding Birmingham area, with many having experience with teams like Villa, WBA, Blues, Wolves & Coventry.

Solihull were well backed financially up until this season.
They're not spending the money they used to,but are still doing very well.
I've never heard of there manager,but obviously the recruitment is bang on,something we've got bang on,once in the last god knows how many years.

Andy whing, ex Coventry, Brighton and Oxford

Didn't you know? Clubs that do better than us all have wealthy backers. Every single one. They're all spending millions. MILLIONS!!!

That much publicized big summer budget that never happens is an excellent ST seller.
Works all the time.

Whilst Pools have a supposedly wealthy backer in Singh, Pools wealthy owner is not prepared to throw it at Pools, in his eyes the club has to be managed with out any financial support from him.

We dont even need a wealthy owner, we need soneone that has a clue on how to run a football club. Some of the choices made and people picked to do certain jobs have been disasters.

Of course you need a wealthy owner, to subsidise them, Pools can’t survive on gates of around 4000 with out any financial input from an owner.

They probably are.

History says ya wrong.
Ive been in plenty of Vic crowds of between 800 n 2000 and we survived and showed more ambition than this current Regime without going out the EFL not once but TWICE.
Smart n Barker would of loved 4000 crowds regularly turning up at the Vic. .
Some of the excuses for were we are now are pathetic or is it just internet fishing for Piranhas

Check the crowds from the 60’s onwards …if it hadn’t have been for the old pals act of re-election we’d have been out of the football league in the early 70’s.
The 70’s and 80’s were generally hand to mouth and poor gates, oh they turned out for the big matches, but generally 2,000 gates were a target.
There was no glory back then, just survival, even away wins were a luxury, it was mostly shite but I wouldn’t have missed a minute for the banter alone.
The only table we topped consistently was the top of the table for the number of re-election applications and we topped it by a clear country mile.

Gateshead are doing pretty fine on 1200. Is there chairman putting in double or treble to make up for loss of gate revenue? Highly doubt it. We have survived on 2500 before were now pulling in 4200 to 5000 last few years.

Gateshead were taken over once more in the summer of 2019, this time by a fan-led consortium with Neil Pinkerton and Trevor Clark installed as club owners. No idea of their worth or how they can run a football club with their attendances ?

If there’s 1200 season tickets at Gateshead, being generous at £400 a head that’s nearly half a million…. Size of squad, wages given a squad of 20 players an average salary of 24k or 2k a month before tax.Nah.
Someone has to be pumping in money from somewhere.

Their average gate is 1102 covering their home games this season so you are absolutely right Snowy. They can't have 1200 season ticket holders and unless they have some wealthy sponsors, there must be someone behind them with money.

I went to the extreme in their favour, but basic maths dispels the myth that gate money and careful selection of players is the answer, there has to be someone putting the money in because the players wages were on the low side but only form part of the costs of running a club.

While that was undoubtedly true, we were top of another unenviable table very regularly in those days - that of the weekly North-East hooliganism stats shown on the local TV news.

Now some might call bullshit on that statement, and it would appear that way due to their weekly "table of shame" being simply the numbers arrested at, or ejected from the ground by the muskers - meaning Newcastle or Sunderland were normally the region's worst offenders.

But if you worked out those figures as a percentage of the total attendance - we were often the real NE bad boys.

A typical figure of between 5 to 15 out of 2000-ish was often "better" than than the big clubs' 50 or 60 out of 25000+

Hello, hello, Pooly aggro, Pooly aggro...!!!

Walk on.....................Walk on............Into the Rinkend...............And you,ll never....Walk again........You,ll never walk again......................

Solihull is Posh Brum- plenty of money swilling around there- so maybe shouldn't be that surprised. Suppose you could liken them to Bournemouth in the Prem- whose ground only holds 10k - how are they affording both the wages and million pound transfer fees - FFP- my arse!

We've been poorly run. Thats why we are under achieving for our size and keep getting humiliatedby pub teams. Stop scrabbling around for excuses folks.

I wasn't making excuses - just pointing out facts

Oh no, you used the ‘F’ word…. and you are correct.

He did use the F word but didn't really provide any.