While we are desperate for a prolific striker every time I watch EFL on quest I keep hearing Amonds name either scoring or making goals.

Point here is how come he is a regular scorer for Newport yet his spell here wasn’t memorable? I thought at the time he didn’t look like he was enjoying his football mainly when he was here. Decent player at L2 level, Newport have been up top of their league most of the season.

When we talk of strikers we’ve had a few over the years that have looked decent for a while then have left having little impact oil the long term, I’m thinking Bingham,Muir, Fenwick to name but three then there’s those who have left and done well elsewhere, Amond, Kabamba, Alessandra for instance.

What we do some times to decent players mystifies me? Over coaching? Playing players out of their normal position?

We do seem to destroy players, don't think it's over coaching though. I have a view that players that live out of town and and managers who sometimes don't even live in the area never mind the town, makes for a lonely existence for some of them, particularly those from the South, and the black players, therefore they soon become happy, Not playing them , especially with not having a reserve team , or playing them in the wrong positions can only exacerbate the situation.

Agree with both of the above .I also think if you are lucky enough to find regular goal scorer when signing you should play to his strong points of play as to where and how he best wants to receive the ball.

Podge Amond's best return of League Two goals in a full season is 14. He's done it twice - in season 2016-2017 for Pools and in season 2018-19 for Newport. He probably would have scored more for us in 16/17 but the goals dried up a bit towards the end of the season, likely as a result of months of being paid late by Coxall! In the same season Lewis Allesandra scored 9 League goals for Pools - not quite as good as his most prolific season (for Plymouth in 2014/15) but better than he's done for Notts County and Morecambe in the seasons since he left Pools. So far he's scored 1 in 10 games for Carlisle this season.

Nike Kabamba scored fairly regularly for Pools (12 in 31 games) and is doing the same at Kilmarnock (7 in 22 games).

Like any other Poolie, I have an impression of how individual players did for us and I notice when they score for somebody else. But impressions can be deceptive sometimes

think at times pools have been unlucky. think most were excited by amond and alexandra signings but they both came at the wrong time for them. not being even slightly local they could not get away fast enough. did they actually move to the area or just lived in digs a few days or commuted. if that was the case you knew they would not be around for the long haul.

They knew the club was a couple of steps away from going under and had mortgages and the rest to pay. I was bitterly disappointed when Amond left. but bearing in mind what happened just a few months later he'd have been mad to stay. Newport were a whisker away from going down instead of us the previous season, but obviously they weren't a financial basket case and have kicked on since their reprieve.

14 in a relegated team is a decent return. Thats also with 2 managers and uncertainty over getting paid threw into the mix.

We had the makings of a decent team that season, hignett was building something. Pretty much every signing made that year is playing levels above us now.

Always feel like us n newport were at a proper sliding doors moment that year, we fucked up n went down, they stayed up, did alright, got spurs in the fa cup etc

That's a good point about the signings Hignett made. As individuals they have gone on to better things, Hignett just couldn't get them working as a team, and too attack minded for my liking, and a natural coach, not a manager.

It's a bit scary to think Amond is exactly the sort of striker we need currently. He was when we signed him, think he was top scorer in the NL season before for Grimsby, yet wasn't as prolific for us and went completely off the boil in last third of his Pools career, which I don't think was down to getting paid late, if he was sulking surely he would've just feigned injury rather than take it out on his teammates and the fans, though his body language was terrible in those last 15 games for us.

So if we signed another Amond would the same thing happen again? I can count the number of prolific strikers we have had in my 49 years of supporting Pools on one hand with fingers to spare