It still staggers me the regularity with which the Bunker mantra of 'Turner was a useless hopeless manager, Wadsworth is a lower division Mourinho turning the poor players Turner left into a well-organised fighting machine' is repeated unchallenged. (See the 'Just seen' thread earlier today)

I thought Turner did OK. I think Wadsworth has done OK.

After 26 games last year we were well into the toughest run of fixtures we've ever seen consecutively - we were 12th and 5 points above the relegation places.

After our 'radical improvement and organisation' by Wadsworth after 26 games we are 14th and 4 points above the relegation places.

Admittedly we are much tighter at the back this year - we've conceded one less than at this point last year. 39 v 40. Only in doing that we've sacrificed the ability to score goals. We've scored ten goals less. 27 v37.

Some people I know say Turner signed rubbish - if offered a choice of Yantorno or McSweeney I know which I'd take. But then I suppose Murray v Gamble is equally easy (and it wouldn't be Gamble).

I'm not saying Turner was great - but he was OK and did care about Pools an enormous amount.

I'm not saying that Wadsworth is poor. He's OK. I enjoyed the second half at Huddersfield this season as much as I've enjoyed 45 minutes in years.

I feel that with Turner familiarity bred contempt which was underserved.
A quick look at the evidence shows that any improvement in the team is marginal at best.

Turner's teams almost never beat the good sides and Wadsworth has removed that fear it seems. But I certainly don't remember us taking the 4 and 5 goal drubbings that are happening with increasing regularity.

Time to re-appraise the 'Turner garbage, Wadsworth great' school of thought maybe?

Cue Parmo.

Canny post that.
Hopefully we will stop up this season and then give Wadsworth a fresh start with his own team.
Maybe this time next season might be more appropriate to compare the two.

i stopped reading after the "turner did ok" comment.

You can't even begin to compare the two, Wadsworth influenced 3 signings during the summer. Two of them are excellent, Horwood will probably be our left back until he retires if he doesn't go on to better things.

Turner signed all the shite in this squad, he even give new contracts to rubbish that Wilson signed like Mackay.

Nobody has said Wadsworth is brilliant but he is challenged with making a silk purse out of a sows ear.

You can't compare someone who singed 15 players with someone who's had no scope to improve the squad and was thrown into a job he didn't really want. Nobody has suggested Wadsworth is a lower league Mourinho, he's a decent bloke doing his best.

What did you seriously expect this season because my expectations were FAR worse than 34 points at this stage?

To top Turner's efforts Wadsworth merely needs to supervise a campaign in which we avoid relegation by more than a single point or without having to rely on of one of our adversaries scoring one less goal than us.

Things could still go horribly wrong, I think I said something to similar effect when we were 7th, but I'd say the sensible man's money is on us easily avoiding relegation and finishing in a position similar to what we're in now if not slightly higher.

Not sure why you mention Yantorno so specifically? Kean, Murray and Horwood have been three of the best players this season and proves that Wadsworth eye for a signing is far better.

Wadsworth walks on water for me, he's not perfect and I'm sure he'd be the first to admit he has made mistakes but I still think he's leaps and bounds ahead of that kunt we had before. The fact he doesn't seem hell bent on getting us relegated is a big plus.

The statistics might be right but it does'nt tell the story.
Pools played dire to watch, long ball stuff under turner and we got lucky signing O'Donovan last season and having Joel Porter before that.
Wadsworth has got us playing football and entertaining again, without the luxury of having a striker.

Hang on....

It doesn't imply significant improvement at all (although I believe we have seen one in terms of organisation and team spirit) the 'sows ear' is all the crap Turner signed, a wage budget of over £2,000,000 probably the biggest we have ever has left us with this unbalanced disjointed squad. We didn't even have a left back last season after 15 signings. Wadsworth has had to coach that squad, it is not his squad. Turner always did have to make 6 bad signings to make a good 1 good one.

Turner didn't want to put his tracksuit on again?!!? I don't really think it's possible to be more wrong, unless his old one didn't fit!!

Wadsworth deserves great credit for Kean. He was tremendous.

Turner deserves great credit for O'Donovan. He was tremendous.

No arguments for me there. Got no issue with praising Turner for the O'Donovan signing.

It's just a shame he also signed Bjornsson, Fredriksen, Cherel, Larkin, Boyd, Behan, Liam Henderson, Guy and Parker who all contributed the square root of fuck all. Not forgetting the ridiculous contract extention to Mackay as mentioned above.

I agree that the football is often better to watch. But it really is weird watching us play well for an hour and then take a 4 goal battering due to disorganisation and lack of concentration. And then have people say we are better organised!

You could easily forget the stuffing at Watford. They were a superb side once they woke up. But not so forgiveable was the Peterbrough beating. They weren't significantly better than us.

Turner knew the strikers weren't good enough and brought in O'Donovan.

We've just gone through a transfer window and haven't acquired the striker we need - we got a talented midfielder who we are playing up front.

I hope things go OK for Wadsworth and would certainly hope he gets a couple of seasons to build his own team. The signings are mostly positive and putting in a defensive midfielder to free up Tony Sweeney to run on has been a superb decision.

My only point really was that the results don't support the often repeated abuse of Turner and praise of Wadsworth. Both good blokes who do their best working with pathetically low crowds and generous (but sometimes difficult) owners.

Turner took us within a point of going down last season, the season before we relied on other results going our way on the last day to stay up after Turner had taken charge in December when we were sitting comfortably in 13th. Turner's abuse is more than warranted IMO and don't even start me on them crocodile tears after the Brentford game last year.

He was backed unbelievably by the Chairman throughout and I don't think you'd find Wadsworth calling the owners 'generous' given that he has been on a shoestring budget since joining.

Interesting to see a different angle on Wadsworth and Turner given that The Bunker (as you say) appears pretty unanimous in differentiating between the two but I have to disagree with you entirely. Wadsworth has been a breath of fresh air after Turner in so many respects, although he is far from perfect.

what got me about turner was after all the money he wasted last season buying crap, he started this season by going to the press whinging if he can't buy any more players pools will go down.

wadsworth has come in and just got on with the job, no excuses. By doing this I think he has earned the respect of the fans and the players.

I'm suprised its even being discussed, Wadsworth or Turner? its like a choice between a blow job and a punch in the mouth.

As much as I appreciate how much we have tightened up the defence over the course of this season, only having conceded one goal less is not an improvement in my opinion. The season hasn't finished yet.

Turner was doing OK, you're right there.

With all due respect, Mr Tax, if 'Pools hadn't been as incompetent as they were when they didn't realise Liddle should have been unavailble, then we might not have lost the three points, and had to spend the last weeks of the season sweating over the drop.

Thank God Gillingham got themselves relegated by not winning an away game all season.

Pools were incompetent...hmmm... so who at Pools was responsible for the incompetence for Liddle playing?

We never knew I don't think. There should have been a root-and-branch inquiry by the board after we were deducted 3 points.

But it didn't materialise.

it must have been Martians.
Yes, it was definitely them

Do you think that was entertaining at Oldham????

Thats you fooked PDE, POK agrees with you!!!

didn't see it, but I thought the home game against Oldham was entertaining, so were the games against brighton, peterbro etc , better than anything I watched last season.

At the end of the day it's points on board which count.
People will say turner brought in 10 players which must mean he had a massive budget, possibly not the case, I can remember Torquay bringing in 12 players one season and finishing 2nd bottom of league 2.

Does anyone know what kind of money these 10 players were on?
Probably not!!!

Considering we are going for a record consecutive season in league 1 I find the hatred of Turner incredible.
I think Hartlepool fans just love someone to hate, don't worry, if it's not Wadsworth next there'll be someone else in the firing line before long.

Turner went for quantity over quality in the most important area of the pitch, attack. That's as unforgivable as it gets.

Millwall at home and Southend at home were just as good.
Odonavon got a hat trick in the latter.
Funnily enough thought turner was doing ok until he resigned.

Is it really? Maybe he couldn't get the quality?
We all know how difficult it is attracting decent players to the north east, the "big 3" will vouch for that.
Then there's wages. Then there's the crowds.
If you had the choice of signing for Huddersfield or Hartlepool who would you pick ?

Nardiello was available, pretty sure we could have got him if we had tried.

Was there any real need to sign 5 strikers? He could have brought 2 in then bided his time.

I'd pesonally pick Hartlepool

I've been found out.
Me and Russ have been in charge of training and team selection since Jan 4th !!!!!!!!!!!
Chris Turner hasn't given us any tactical advice though............cos he doesn't believe in tactics see.
We've improved the refreshments, beer on the bus etc..........which is why certain players are desperate to keep their position............er on the bench.
And what about consistency eh eh eh eh???
Three out of four away from home............four against...........no shots on target !!!!!!!!!!
Russ has started a diet plan, cos he fancies the job of shoring up the midfield. I've told him to stay as he is.........they won't get past him.
It's only a matter of time before we turn it round.........Ken told us see, and he's the main man.
Now where did I put Chris Turner's phone number.........I need to tell him the Wednesday job is vacant.

Right so maybe we should realise how many clean sheets have we kept away from home in comparison.....i know we have conceded one less but would you rather of conceded 2 in the games where we conceded 4 and not kept as many clean sheets?

Turner signed some dross in the playing department, of that there is no doubt but he did sign Wadsworth.

Pretty sure? I'm unsure!!
I'm also sure he didn't sign those 5 strikers because he knew they were shit, I'm sure he was trying to do the best he could do with the money he had.
Honestly, I'm sure some on here think he signed shit players on purpose!!
He certainly wasn't given 10 million to spend, if he had then we could criticise.
Some of the hatred directed at him is unbelievable.

Me too:) unless of course the other club offered me triple to what pools did.

one look at colin larkins record would surely give you a clue that he's shit?

Good turner signing that.

Come on chip. He did what he had to and kept us up.
Crowds about 4th lowest in all the divisions, 4th round of cup last season, the man was hardly a disaster.
Yes the football was awful at times but no manager has set the place alight with the team in league 1 since cooper left.

You can't argue with that, at least in bringing Boyd back he was signing a player who had proved he was capable of getting 20 a season in League one and who as a Hartlepool lad should have been easy to motivate.

How do you know he had the biggest budget?
I presume you know what Larkin and co are on.
Anyway, i'm not on about other clubs he's been at.
At the end of the day he kept us up on crowds which wouldn't look out of place in the conference.
If Wadsworth equals this then he too deserves credit.

Whilst comparing stats from this season to last season (e.g. goals conceded) how does our goalscoring compare?

After 24 league games this season we have scored 26 goals.
After 24 league games last season we had scored 32 goals.

Pools don't appear to look at records though do they???
I mean one look at Turner's record in this division and.....................
There has been a lot of bad decisions made at Pools and whilst Turner must take his share of the blame, he's not the only one.

in defence of turner his signings that wernt strikers have all been pretty decent, wilson left the squad in a mess and we did need to bring in quantity rather than quality, if you say to any manager go out and sign 15 players but you can only pay a fee for a couple i dont think anyone would have a great success rate. if we hadnt lost those 3 points we would have finished 16th which would have been progress on the year before

he did loose the plot in the second half of the season and it was probably for the best he left in the summer, the decision to give mackay a 2 year contract was ridiculous aswell. i think the jury is still out on wadsworth because theres been some improvement but its impossible to say whether thats down to him or the players having had a year togethor.
Poolie of kent why do you want a root and branch inquiry, the 2 people responsible for team selection have left the club, are you suggesting we give chilcott a ring and interrogate the people in the club shop

in the space of a month, Wadsworth has gone from being a excellent coach working wonders with the squad he has got (also picking up manager of the month) to being put on a par with chris turner. Unberfookinglievable.

This thread is laughable, anyone with eyes can see we are playing about 100% better than last season and have a manager that has some tactical knowledge.

Turner couldnt find his arse with both hands

I'm sure most budgets including ours are based on attendances.

I think Bradford are probably the best example of how big crowds do not equate into loads of cash to spend on great players. They get bigger crowds than pretty much 90% of League 1 yet are languishing near the bottom of League 2.

Wadsworth achieved decent results away consistently so there was no reason to believe it would go pear shaped so suddenly. Maybe the results will improve again playing the way the team does on its travels - but if not then I agree something has to change (be that personnel or formations or both)
I do agree that the onus is on Pools to attack when playing at home, and that the current style is not good to watch if we aren't producing 4-2 wins. The fact is it's been the first patch of consistently poor form this season. We regularly hit poor form the past 2 seasons and the bloke in charge deserves a chance to steer the team out of it
There are more reasons than just Turner's poor management that made me dislike him - it was the way he weedled his way back into Pools in the first place when he had nowhere else to go. He played Hodcroft for a mug and continued to pull the wool over his eyes for a very long period.

Unbelievable thread.

Turner was a disease at this club, spreading his negativity everywhere.

Wadsworth has been a breath of fresh air, i dont even want to think what position we would be in if Turner was still here since it was impossible to beat the likes of Brighton. Huddersfield, Bournemouth, Peterbrough etc etc under Turner as he said we were beat before kick off. (and cos he didnt believe in tactics)

If your gonna judge Wadsworth then give him till this point next season, by which time he will have got rid of all the shite Turner signed and hoepfully got some of his own players in.