A return of "hoofball" to Victoria Park as we decided to just kick long high balls all game to yellow shirts. No football played at all, not once did we string more than 3 passes together and not once did we look like scoring.

Made all the worse because Norwich were nothing special at all.

Flinders-7. Good save from Holt at end.
Haslam-6. Steady
Collins-6.5. Did well with teh cheating fat twat Holt
Liddle-7. as above and looks a right find at centre back.
Hartley-5. Poor or do we still have to say he is 'nervous'? Worse passer than Nelson.
Mcsweeney-5. Ineffective and poor crossing.
Sweeney-2. As usual we played with 10 men. Did nothing, doesnt ever look like doing anything but still gets his game because Turner is clueless. Touched the ball about 5 times second half and never kept it once.
Jones-6. Needs someone to partner him in the middle.
Monky-5. Poor and kept losing his rag although Holt did his best to get him sent off. Fat cheating twat.
Larkin-4. Looked good against Burnely against tired legs and when they were pushing forward, looked nothing special at all today.
Behan-4.5. Im a Behan fan but was woeful today, didnt do a thing right.


Turner out please and a proper manager in.

ps i enjoyed the half time "entertainment" more and that was fucking awful too.

Jones was complete shyte

cant understand why we do so well against premier league teams?

why did CT change tactics if we done so well against burnley

cant understand why we do so well against premier league teams?

why did CT change tactics if we done so well against burnley

we made norwich look good
no midfield
no threat up front
i find it very difficult to believe that the only change from tuesday was larkin up front as we played like a team who only met each other at 2.55 today

I think a couple of them ratings are a touch high. Flinders should not really get more than a 6 as he only made 1 save of note yet conceded 2 at home again. Jones was not really deserving of a 6. Liddle and Collins looked alright but apart from them we were dire today. You were also kind in giving sweeney a 2. He is chronically bad in the middle of the park. Yes, they may have been tired after the other nights match but that cant be an excuse for such a pitiful display.

The old guard on here will say it was a one off and that we are going to have a good season blah blah but unless there are big changes (in terms of management included) we are going to be in a relegation battle this season. We are losing when we play well ffs, so what chance have we got?

Another 2 goals conceded at home despite this great defence that we supposedly have these days

Oh and will incur the wrath of people on here even more by saying that I dont think hartley is any good whatsoever. Mcsweeney has NO end product at all and just runs about a lot a la Matty Robson. Haslam is nothing special.

Turner out!

Can't blame the defence they were good again Turner needs to start looking at that amazing midfield.. In the paper he says that's the last signing as he hates players on Loan, Well Mr Turner unless Willie Boland is all of a sudden going to be back to fitness you need to get a hard man in.

Turner out

Sweeney didn't even deserve a 2 ! , goes missing all game fcukin useless

Turner out?? fucking bell ends

the full midfield deserve a 2 in that case. they were nowere today, all as bad as each other.. as for turner out

Yes Turner out his record speaks for itself, He cannot motivate that midfield at all unless you were happy with that performance, Before you mention Burnley any player will be able to motivate themself for a game like that, Thanks for the insult though love you too xx

Any professional footballer should be more than capable of motovating themselves for every game

no i'm well narked about that performance, i thought it was terrible. But you can't keep fucking harping on about sacking him when we get beat, its pathetic. These games will happen now and again, accept it and move on.

If this type of form/performance continues for another 8-9 games THEN shout for his head.

We have played 7 games this season and only played BADLY in 1 of them, get a fucking grip

Thats 6 home defeats in a row I think. Turner out.

we might be

but it WONT be pools we will be watching

we got to remember the teams we have been playing have been the better teams in the league although i thought we did make norwich look good today as we were utter shite sweeney as been awful all season freideksen is totally one footed and always bottles a challenge why not give power a go in midfield with jones things cant get much worse at the minute

i may be a member of the Alan Power fan club (Member 003 i believe) but please god no!

Lets get a decent midfielder in who can tackle!

if you wanted to give behan 0/10 surely sweeney would get minus 10/10

I shouted to turner near half time " get foooking browny on" he shouted back, "il play him when he's fit"
Why the fook was he doing on the bench then if he isn't fit

I think Sweeney is playing centre mid on the back of a good season four years ago. I like the lad but how is he getting a game?

You can't have someone in the engine room of the team who never appears to be available for the ball.

Lightning, I heard somebody shout something like that earlier on the commmentary. If you are who I think you are, I think I might have heard you say something like that as it was picked up by the 'Pools Player commentary microphone.

I heard that shout all the way from all the way down here in Gillingham.

Well he must have got fit in them 20 mins or so after you shouted!!

Also agree entirely with pj.

he played pretty well at times last season when he moved back into midfield. This season, on the games i have seen, he's been pretty poor

I just don't think he has progressed at all. It might not even be really his fault he's played right wing and right back before it was decided he was a center mid again. He runs all day but are his runs intelligent? You never see him dropping off into space to make himself available for ball.

He could just be out of form, but from what I've seen he shouldn't be in the team.

It probably was me, as was said he got pretty fit during the half time interval.
I'm not one to slag off the manager at the match but behan and larkin weren't very effective, mind the service from the midfield was non extistant.

he took a knock on the knee last week and was only capable of half an hour or so, its not that difficult to understand is it? If he's fit he's the first name on the team sheet

Also, Boydy got better as the game went on, on Tuesday night and he scored. I didn't think he was great but the more he plays the better he'll get.

So given all of that and the fact Browny wasn't deemed fit enough to start why the fook wasn't he in the team today?

Baffling if you ask me....

maybe Turner though Larkins pace would be a good foil for Behans knockdowns?


A behan & boyd partnership isn't a particularly mobile one

PC came along to her first match this season today. I said to her before kick off, you haven't seen Behan yet have you, prepare to be impressed. What a fool I felt by the end of the match.

I would give Behan and Sweeney a 0. I'd give monkey 1, mainly for a run he made sometime in the 2nd half.
I'd also give very very low marks to Mcsweeney. He's bobbins.

Monkey acted like a petulant five year old today, I though he deserved to be sent off

Please God no? At least Power can fucking tackle, and tackle hard. I was with the lad today after he didn't even make the bench and the passion and anger he showed me about not even making the squad tells me everything. He couldn't be any worse than Sweeney who doesn't even look like he wants to be on the pitch. Sweeney played hide and seek all game, and Jones wasn't much better (though at least he was positive at times). Bollocks to anyone who says I'm Power's mate but from what I saw today then if Power isn't an alternative, we're in serious trouble in that central midfield spot.

Central midfield is the biggest problem in our squad. We have a keeper now and full backs who can actually defend. Now all we need is Mark Tinkler in his prime. When the onus is on us at home to dictate the play, boss possession and actually create things we are lacking.

Our midfield isn't good enough.

I agree. Try Fredrickson in place of monkhouse. He does my foooking head in.

We don't need a 'hard man' as such just a good footballer who can tackle and provide some quality in the final third (Mark Tinkler ) See Boro want to offload Josh Walker who was on loan at Aberdeen last season, he's a holding midfielder.

We are going to make no more signings though according to Turner, I bet it on any money that in a few weeks we'll be watching a square peg play in a round hole in midfield in Ben Clark.

Team for Friday :

Flinders

Austin Collins Liddle Hartley

McSweeney Jones Power Fredriksen

Behan Brown

subs: Cook Haslam Clark Rowell Larkin Boyd Greulich

Leaving the only other 2 of our 20 available players, Monkhouse and Sweeney, sitting in the stands.

Would it be remiss of me to point out that they had a draining 120 minute game the other day and might still be slightly recovering?

If it was half way through the season fair enough, Not at the beginning, Even Mr Turner said himself He has strength in depth yet he played wrong tactics from the start

Fair enough but people need to cut them some slack, we've performed above expectations so far and after the games we've had we are ahead of where most expected us to be. Up to now we've played good teams and got more points than people predicted, we'll get a more realistic picture of where we are at the end of October once we've played Oldham. Wycombe, Colchester, Walsall and Stockport.

I agree that to get a decent picture of how things are going, we need to see how we do against the bottom teams BUT we all seem to be just writing off the first half a dozen games this season. Surely to god if we are going to at least 'compete' in this division we should be capable of beating the top sides. It is going to put an awful lot of pressure on us to win the 6-pointers when they come around (and whether we like it or not we all know how often our team does not bother to turn up for such games!).

People have just written on the games against the decent teams like charlton, norwich etc BUT these are the very same people who were saying at the start of the season that we have nothing to fear and that we are in the same division as them on merit (ie they were relegated from the championship for being poor). Norwich were miles better than us yesterday (and they were only average imo).

I dont think the 6-pointers are going to all go our way, a few defeats in there and we will be in serious bother. We certainly cant bank on our home form to get results can we.

Pools will finish bottom 8, whether we are in the four positions above the drop zone or the four inside it after 46 games is in the lap of the Football Gods. It really does depend on how we fare against the Walsalls, Stockports, Brightons etc. If we lose those type of games too often then we are Donald Ducked.
There is seemingly no chance of any points at all against the big clubs - we've already lost two out of two at home and that mentality seems like it will be at Pools forever. Something I have never liked about Pools is the cap-doffing attitude when we play these teams and we step aside and humbly "know our place."

Good point although they show that when they play premiership opposition and get the ball on the deck we do compete! Perhaps there is a message there for CT?

In the first half of last season we were conceding 2 or more quite often at home, but you always felt like we had goals in us, and we came away with alot of 4-2, 3-2, 4-3 scorelines.

Yesterday we didn't even look like scoring.

I doubt it will have been Mr Lightning Tree unless he has a fog horn like voice, I am guessing that he sits in the Ck stand seeing as Turner replied to him, the commentators on Pools Player sit at the back of the Millhouse stand