It was clear to everyone at the time that Curle needed to leave, we would have been relegated by this point without Askey coming in.

One thing I haven't saw mentioned is the quality of Curles recruitment, especially when compared to Hartleys.

Curle was supported by Chris Trotter with recruitment in January. It appeared as though Trotter was someone who had extensive data and information on players in some form of a database, I am not sure how much negotiation he did with players and agents. I am not sure how much good old fashioned scouting at real games he did, if any.

Curle watched Dan Dodds regularly, Curle went round Peter Hartleys house to see him, Curle travelled to service stations to meet with agents and players, including Danny Johnson. Curle put in a massive amount of recruitment legwork.

I do wonder if he was burnt out, overwhelmed maybe, as although he convinced some good players to sign, tactically and motivationally we were poor.

If we take a look at some of Curles signings:

Jacob Stolarzyck
Dan Dodds
Edon Pruti
Dan Kemp
Connor Jennings
Oliver Finney

The first 5 are all in our best 11, half of the team. There are others who have contributed and some a waste of time - but take away those 5 and we would have been relegated.

Curles recruitment gave us a fighting chance of staying up.

Lets hope that Askey is better supported with recruitment in the summer by this Director of Football from Newport as we cannot afford him to lose focus on the players & tactics.

Looking at the staff profiles on the OS which appears to be upto date we have Askey, McGrath Sweeney and Goodlad, no sign of Trotter.
It would appear we don’t have a CEO either since Hobin left in March, maybe people have problems working for Singh ?

Chris Trotter left Pools in Feb 23 and is apparently out of work, according to his LinkedIn.

I don't think Hobin had a problem with Raj, he fell on his sword due to promising champagne and delivering lemonade and taking alot of stick for it from the fans. I think he has left but haven't saw any confirmation or what he has moved onto.

Sad to say Hartley, he got a couple of signings right. He signed
Cooke
Sylla
McDonald
Umerah

Was a shame about the rest of them.

What those four have in common is they are all signings from the English leagues, something Hartley knew the square root of naff all about. I reckon they were Trotter recommendations.

Curle sounds like the bloke who designs cars but doesn’t drive…..maybe we could keep him as a scout….or maybe not.

It is quite likely that Trotter was responsible for all the signings from English league teams under Hartley and Curle. The way of selecting footballers t o sign has changed dramatically in the last 10 seasons. There are now extensive databases and methods of calculating a players worth using a computer and being able to sign players at below market value.

Curle it should be remembered also brought in Robinson, Missilou and Clarke on short term deals as he had worked with them previously and all failed.

The Scottish signings were generally not up to scratch, maybe Murray will be the exception now he has good management. It is disappointing that Trotter has left as some of the signings have been excellent. I am sure he deserves the credit for those rather than Hartley or Curle. If I am wrong then Curle has done well.

If we give up in the database method we have taken a backward step. If anyone doubts computers and statistics are not the way forward in selecting players then you only have to look at the remarkable achievements of Brighton and Brentford who are the main users of the method.

Trotter got the chop straight after Askey and his coach Mark Goodlad were appointed. Darren Kelly came in a few days later as Sporting Director.

Out with the old, in with the new. Trotter couldn't escape being associated with Hartley and Curle both failing as managers. He probably won't be missed - depending on how good the recruitment for next season is.

Data analysis is good, providing you have people who can analyse it correctly it can be a useful tool… but ….. it’s only part of the process as those traits such as character and attitude can’t be truly analysed on stats alone.

It’s what a footballer can do with the ball that matters, what would a data analyst have made of Gaza in his younger days, he probably would have never made it, he had a football brain which data analyst wouldn’t have realised.
At work there were fellas with qualifications as long as your arm, some couldn't organise a p*** up in a brewery or put a nut on a bolt.

Artificial Intelligence is supposed to be the future!

exactly. there is nothing better than actually watching a lad play the game. you can have all the stats in the world but will never beat that. encourage ex players and people askey knows in the game living out of the area to send names in of players they have seen who could do us a job. if they are any good surely the club could afford a drink for them spotting em. no one man can see everybody.

So was Betamax.

Actually believed to better than VHS but the the big players went for VHS, I had a Sanyo Betamax recorder, top loader, huge it was.

at least you can say that you had a bigger one than the majority had.

It was better and we actually bought one too, but you always felt you’d bought the runner up in the race….ah well.

I think our new trio are of the old school and will no doubt travel to watch their men play - no doubt also will have a notepad full of lads they know who can do it. Get them in on trial and do it the old fashioned way which works.

I think Askey too knows a player when he sees one (as he has shown with team selection over the last 8 games). So glad we havnt seen any waste of wages over 40s or kids being stuck in the team - do we still employ that Trusty kid ? absolute waste of a loan that

forgot about him but it wasn,t difficult. what did we expect when his other loans were to teams well down the non league pyramid. felt sorry for the lad as he was so far out of his depths at pools it was unbelievable.

We have a manager who seems to know what he is doing. Substitutes that affect games. You could see Saturday it wasn't going great, askey changed it and we were much better. Think we can play way better than Saturday, but no matter what happens now least we have shown some bloody fight.

so it was obvious the players had fight in em when a lot doubted it. makes it more annoying having to go with the 3rd manager of the season to get this out of them and shows the poor job the first two did. didn,t we get another fitness bloke in as well who looked to have worked a miracle with the side who looked dead on their feet after 80 minutes and not looked the strongest one in the end like now.

The improved fitness and stamina is down to the new manager and the training drills he has introduced since he came in. Sweeney says it, the players say it too.

I remember speaking with someone when watching the lads train (might of been about 3 matches in under the new regime) and they quoted that the intensity is alot more - and the training seems more about fitness than ball work.

JA then quoted in a pre match about how hard he has the lads working during training and they all come away after putting a shift in - the way he said it always made me think that this bunch clearly where not upto his standards

difference is that we are scoring late in games were before we were conceeding.

That’s not the players fault though, that shows the lackadaisical attitude of the previous managers, they’re now showing what they’re capable of under a proper manager, Murray being a shining example….he’s also put some fight in them.

there also does not seem to be the mystery injuries about since JA came in. Do not believe in coincidences and it makes me wonder if some of the players just did not fancy playing earlier in the season. how many of us has thrown a sicky if there was something else we fancied doing.

To be fair, Stevenage matched Pools for fitness and desire on Monday and kept going for it till the final whistle.

The only bit of his own anatomy that Fattie Evans exercises is his gob.

they have always been a team that relies on fitness and covering the pitch with a reliance on set pieces. as for the pie man did you watch him swaying about when he gave his rant after the game. possibly he uses that swaying as his warm down. his assistant is usually worse than him and he,ll fall out with the 4th official if a throw in on the half way line goes against them. horrible club in every respect.

them and Sutton are the worst ! honestly cannot stand both clubs

they,ll always be the same no matter who is their manager and players. teams tend for years to play a similar type of football whether its successful or not. its something that seems to be in the DNA of clubs.