thought it was going to be Boro

Me too.
I'd have loved the foooking smoggies at home.

Friggin Wigan ...........

Another winnable tie for us. Should be a good game.

ALL games are winnable and why should it be a good game ....?

Dead cert to be on the telly!

Could've been worse.......ie Wigan away, they wont enjoy coming here .

They might show West Ham vs. Oxford to be honest.

I'm to blame.............I said to our lass " watch us get Wigan " I did forecast away though so thankfully I got that wrong.
We are on holiday when its played.

Shows how far we've come in the last few years when we're disappointed with a home draw against a Premier League club.

I'm not disappointed, I think it'll be a decent game. I might even go.

Would have preferred to have ripped Boro/Mags/Mackems a new arsehole but will happily wait to do it in Round 3.

Or what a pack of whinging fookers we are

Im happy with that apart from being on 2-10 again

Wigan is a winnable game ,it's basically a repeat of the Stoke game. They a team that may well struggle in the Premiership this season and there main aim will be to stay in it.

With Chelsea at home on the previous Saturday (21st with 5;15 pm Kick Off) and Tottenham (A) on the Saturday after (28th), we may well be coming up against a well weakened Wigan team. Martinez will want his strongest team out for those 2 premier games.

Or they may play the strongest squad as it`s the only silverware they have a chance of winning!

Yes course it is,:laugh: Wigan's main aim (and possibly only aim) will be to maintain their Premiership status. Even a Wigan strongest squad isn't going to win the Carling Cup. There are far too many teams who will know there premiership status is guaranteed who will think that's there only choice of a trophy. Everton, Villa, for example and then you can throw Arsenal (kids team) in there as well.

When its at victoria park there always seems a chance a big team will turn up and not fancy it, hopefully wigan drop a few bigger players and we rattle them early on like we did last night. and then please god i would love sunderland or newcastle.

If that happens I wonder how many "fans" of these teams turn up from the town in their shirts standing in the Pools end.

Yeah, because they've never been close to a League Cup Final since they joined the Premier League.

I believe that Wigan were finalists in the 05/06 season so maybe not so funny huh!

If they do I feel it may be time to make violence in football stadia compulsory for 2 hours.

Wigan fan here. After reading some of the comments on here, I felt the need to register on this site just to post this reply.

Firstly, are all teams from the North East supported by the worlds most unrealistic and over-expectant set of fans? I thought I'd heard everything from listening/reading Newcastle and Sunderland comments over the years.

Secondly, you guys who are disappointed about drawing Wigan in the next round, I can assure you that every single Wigan fan will be a thousand times more disappointed than you at this tie.

Thirdly, we got to the Carling Cup Final about 4 years ago with our reserve team so to say we couldn't ever stand a chance even with our first team just makes you sound like a complete baffoon and proves your complete lack of footballing knowledge.

Fourthly, yes you're correct - we almost certainly will field an under-strength team and won't really care about this competition especially at such an early stage. Not when there's something really precious to play for - premiership survival.

Fifthly, you say Wigan will only be bothered about survivng relegation like it is a unique thing to Wigan. There are about 10 or 12 teams in that division who will have the exact same initial pre-season hopes.

Sixthly, you support #$%#ing Hartlepool, not LIVERpool. Get a grip. If you somehow manage to beat our 18 year olds and get through to the next round it will be a wonderful, remarkable achievement. Any Premiership opposition be it Wigan, Blackpool, West Brom...whoever, will be the highlight of your season by a long way. Don't forget which team you support before belittling other, better teams.

Good day.

Wigan is a bounder

h.th

And remember who you support mate, we wernt playing you that long ago either. The point people were making was that we knocked Stoke out of the cup last year at home and gave West Ham a good game. We are not supid enough to think we are better than Wigan which is simply not true, but we feel we have a good chance against you and other of your ilk ie trying to survive in Prem.

I wouldn't bother biting with this clown lads, he's probably never heard of Springfield Park and believes that Wigan Athletic didn't exist until they got into the Premiershit.

I'll love it if we beat Wigan, love it!

'High & Mighty' ????

That's the exact reason I posted it. It was like I was reading a Man Utd or Chelsea board rather than Hartlepool.

And I do remember exactly where we've come from and how we've achieved way over anyones expectations least of all our own in recent years.

What shocked me was the attitude of most of you Hartlepool fans.

Like I said, I've had enough years of reading Newcastle/Sunderland comments to realise just how 'high & mighty' they truly belive they are. And from the short time I've spent on your board, I can see that attitude must filter around the whole north east.

If anyone can find anything they disagree with in my comments, please feel free to discuss. Or just call me a child, say I've never heard of Springfield Park, or any other childish name-calling you wish. But any genuine comments or disagreements to any points I've raised will be gladly taken on board.

It's not that difficult to see his point though is it. We've already got our cushions ready for the third round before a ball is kicked and have shown lots of disrespect to Wigan who after all, are two divisions above us.

I've just checked on betfair and you can get around 90-1 against Wigan getting the Carling Cup, so it seems others don't rate their chances much either.
What this Wigan fan doesn't seem to be able to grasp is that people are speaking as they see it.
Despite the fact they are in the premiershite they are not as an attractive draw as say championship Smoggieborough.
That said, due to the fact that they have bigger fish to fry, it gives us a chance of progressing, in much the same way as we have progressed this year, last year and previous years, against championship clubs, and the odd prem club.
We are not singling out Wigan as the only potential strugglers in the prem............we are simply referring to our next opponents. We would have said the same about Blackpool and quite a few more, but we aren't playing them.

This Wigan guy refers to prem status as precious.............therein lies the difference between our two mindsets.

The most famous team in Wigan plays rugby league.

Didn't Rochdale once allow Gracie to appear on Wigan Pier.

At the moment northeast cricketers are in Lancashire showing the bounders how to play cricket !!!!!!!!!

And it's buffoon, not baffoon, so there!

I hope the 'respect' remark is meant as a joke, Mr I

What a tit, does he think they'll all be backing us to win on the Wigan board. I remember standing in that cow-shed stand, on a muddy bank, in the rain, many times at Wigan years ago........before the money arrived.

I also remember a cup game there where their then Manager Larry Lloyd said we were the loudest fan's he'd ever heard.....fact.

Hmm interesting this one from our in no way inflated Wigan fan, as a HUGE and obviously long term fan on here defending all things Wigan, its strange he never mentioned coming to the match, I cant believe he is another internet blowhard

Sheff Utd now a steady away Championship side, brought about 600 so a Premiership side from the north should easily top that and make Pools fans realise that our respect was totally unjustified

Let's go through your post bit by bit.

Firstly we,ve never been higher than the third tier of English Football so we're highly unlikely to have unrealistic or over expectant.

Secondly your fans are thousand times more disappointed than yours. I don't think so. If you think your first team can win the Carling Cup because your so called "reserve" team made the final 4 years ago shows you as the buffoon not us. 4 years ago is history not now, it's like saying 5 years ago we made the play off final for league 1 and lost it so we can make it this year, is your reserve team from that final now your recognised first team with 4 years experience behind them. I don't think so.

Here's a scenario for you Wigan v Man City reserves in 3rd round, I know where my money goes.

Fourthly you state you will almost certainly field an under-strength team and don't care about the competition this early......... Getting excuses in early in case we do beat you, is how that reads to me.

Your aim is Premiership survival, to do that you need to improve an away record that had the following last season that saw you lose 9-1, 8-0, 5-0 and 4-0(3 times)

You also conceded more goals than any other team away from home in the division.Along with the worst goal difference in the division(-42) can you see why I put you in the mix for relegation.

Please sir do not make sweeping generalisations about us Pools fans. The truth is most of us actually couldn't give a shiney shyte about your club so don't come on here at us like a Vindaloo with your hot words.

Don't you know we've just hosted the Tall Ships so when your little town has done something similar of note then you can come on here and have a pop. And a reference to your pier in a Simon and Garfunkle song or Graham Greene novel is not enough to manage your expectations.

Oh...and one more thing. If you ever compare us to Newcastle or Sunderland fans then sir you will wish you hadn't you cleft. I do not like the cut of your jib.

What about George Orwell

Dobie dobie dobie do do the road to Wigan Pier

And Wigan can stick their baked beans up there bumholeio

Christ I like to see how he reacts when people really do denigrate Wigan Rovers.

(Reads the discussion through again, sees nothing but people calmly and sensibly (for once!) discussing the game until the moment our superior walks into the room.)

Maybe being in the premiershit gives you a chip on your shoulder? Should be nice to go with all them pies in Wigan.

Wigan's Chosen Few were good.

If you don't care about it at an early stage... you won't get a chance to care about it later... what a thing to hope for... 'survival' as an aspiration, you really are a typical piece of Premiershite ballast ... at the bottom and supporting the important 'cargo' above you....You appear to know your place in the big picture... survival... precious...? such an utterly soul destroyingly abysmal target to aim for.

Absolutely what I thought, Snozz. Where on earth is the joy in watching a team when avoiding a drubbing is considered a result?
OK, it would perhaps be nice, and certainly surrealistic, if ever Pools got promoted to the pretentiousship one day. We'd play all the historically mighty teams (while suffering a Derby type humiliation) and be dead certs to be sent fook-off straight back down where we came from; the bookies wouldn't even give a price on our relegation.
Yet despite that, we'd all be hoping we clung on? hoping we made it to safety so we could rinse and repeat?

I sure as hell hope we fookin' wouldn't do anything of the sort.

If I were a Wigan supporter right now, i think I'd be the unhappiest supporter in the world. And to top the lot, if that ignomy weren't enough, my team would then have to play Hartlepool in a totally meaningless competition that pales into significance compared with surviving for another season of dismay?

Don't worry Wigan though; it's not just you. If I supported any team at all in that diaboilical league, I think I'd be just as sad. For the big two, what possible pleasure is there in knowing there's only one other team up there competing with you? And how traumatic must it be when the first decent German/Italian/Spanish team that comes along puts your succcess in the bipolar English top flight firmly into perspective. And for the not-good enough-to-upset-the-duopoly teams, how fantastic it must be to finish third, knowing you haven't a snozz in hell's chance ever being any higher, when the highlight of your season is being able to boast you inflicted one of their three defeats.

It is truly one of the worst competitions EVER.

Just put a holiday in for this match coming back from portsmouth so will have to have a good result for me to stay awake that night

Well if survival is their idea of nirvana, with only half a game gone and therir team already being embarrassed by the favourites for the drop, it's looking like it's going to be a VERY long season for them innit.

I can understand their bitterness and desperation. If they lose to Pools their season will be over by the end of August.

Aye, hope they get used to being beat 3-0 by 'Pools teams.

Wonder what the chances are of us being partly responsible for the demise of a Premier, as well as a Champion manager very shortly!!

Blackpool?

There defence and goalkeeper were awful y'day (kirkland used to be good, whats happened to him?)

I do fancy us against them now.

p.s. there next 2 games, chelsea and spurs!