Firstly happy new year.

Right let's get the following off my chest:

Goalkeeping and Decence
The goalkeeping and defensive situation is bleak. We concede far too many goals, too many soft goals. There's a massive difference between a well worked goal and a poor goal to concede. Most goals are caused by a player doing something wrong and can be prevented. However, there's a massive difference between making a small mistakes such as being wrong footed and not winning the odd header and making big mistakes such as letting consecutive long balls split the defence, letting players run past you with ease and opposition players being given acres of space in dangerous positions. We are not only making small mistakes but big ones as well and we are being punished for them. I don't see any other teams making these big mistakes.

Goalkeeping wise ALB has a habit of getting beat at his near post and balls somehow crawl under him. Butdz on the other hand suffers from “shaky hand syndrome”, he often doesn't catch things cleanly and they slip out of his hands, he was still suffering from this problem while warming up on Sunday. Neither goalkeepers are imposing enough. Both keepers need to improve greatly as they are liability. With Dimi's return now out of the question we need an experienced keeper to steady the ship who the defence can trust (cough, cough someone like Clayton Ince).

Midfield
Our midfield often blows hot and cold. At their best they can pass teams to death, but we have not seen this for a long time. Too many of them struggle to get out of first gear and seem to be coasting along, some can be completely anonymous. We don't pass it forward anymore and they are afraid to shoot. Chris Turner is not an idiot and he's been trying to rectify this. Ben Clark seems to be the only one who wants to get stuck in, which begs the question “if they struggle to pass forward and they are afraid to shoot then what purpose do they serve?”. Matty Robson is the one bright spark in our midfield, hopefully he can progress to become one of the best left wingers in League One.

Up Front
Up front aside from Joel Porter we're short of options. Porter has been immense this season and it is a shame that he wasn't our first choice striker last season as well. Mackay struggles with positional awareness and looks lost on the pitch, if he wants to make it as a football league player then he really needs to watch other experienced strikers and learn from them. Foley is too small and gets overpowered and his confidence has been shot to pieces, but at least he wants to play for us. Finally Brown will come back from his injury and his cartridge will actually be stronger when it's fixed, hopefully he will regain his form. We need him now but we will have to wait. With Porter leaving then I fear the worst as he has been doing a remarkable job carrying the team at times.

Overall
There's a lack of overall energy and commitment. Some players don't look interested at all and as a fan whose paying money it really annoys me. Teams that allow players to coast along get relegated it's as simple as that. Under Cooper (especially in his first season) we had a lot less talented players but nearly every one of them gave it 100% and when players give 100% then the fans will back them. Clark, Humphreys (although he has struggled this season he is still committed), Sweeney, Porter, Robson and Brown are the only ones who I am convinced are giving 100%, the majority of the rest seem like they don't want to be here. During our dark days at the bottom of Division 3 we had much poorer players but most of them were committed, hence they were backed.

The crowds have dwindled and people are losing their jobs left right and centre. It's a sign of the times and I'd hazard a guess that poorer economic towns such as Hartlepool will be hit the hardest. But to those that go drinking a lot but don't attend games, why not drink less and save your money and support your football team? If you smoke, why not quit smoking improve your health and support Pools? It's just a suggestion.

But for people to make sacrifices to go and see Pools (which with people hard up they WILL have to) then we need to be seeing committed players. We need to be entertained and not entertained in a horror show kind of way such as last week. We need to see 11 players really going for regardless of whether they've got the ability or not.

But what worries me is that two months ago we were having high scoring matches but the crowds did not increase. Nevertheless the players that seemed to be getting us out of these situations were the same players such as Porter, Robson and Sweeney.

With attendances dwindling and the credit crunch etc football clubs are in for a really tough year. That's why I am glad IOR are backing us and have been level headed with their spending. Teams that have not been shrewd will go bust.

Fingers crossed for 2009.

Now I am fooking off to bed.

brilliant post sir!!! Sums up how I feel certainly.

A tie on a lighthouse.

might read it all later.

My first thoughts of 2009 were "who are them twats setting fireworks off at the time of night?".