Pools: Loach, Magnay, Laing, Harrison, Donnelly, Newton, Woods, Hawkins, Munns, Donaldson, Amond.
Subs: Catterick, Richardson, Deverdics, Oates, Cassidy.

Shame about adams must be injured,this team played well against boro

Would of preferred 2 up top, also didn't realise we could only name 5 subs this season. We did it at times last season too mind so no major drama.

Hope harrison learnt today munns is not a left winger.
1st half waste of time once he brought oates on we had a bit of a threat switching to 442.
Midfield hope alot of people get of featherstones back cos for me we sorely missed him today,at least he puts his foot on the ball and passes it.
This is a wake up call,dover tactically had us in their pocket all of the game.

Newton was woeful today, I thought he looked promising against Boro in preseason but nothing worked today. Donnelly was atrocious as well, caught out of position multiple times and looked poor, need to get Adams in there and I think the defence will be much better.

Munns never got a touch of the ball but he has potential if he is played centrally. I'd either give blackford a look if he is as good as some say he is or sign mondal as then we would have a natural left winger rather than trying to squeeze someone else into that role.

Very poor and frustrating match not helped by some of the worst officiating I've ever seen in my years watxhibf Pools. With a decent ref we could have had a few penalties for what, to me, looked like clear fouls.

Here lies the problem, playing players out of position to accommodate the senior players, Harrison has discovered Dave Jones tactical genius manual in the secret draw and thought hmm, looks interesting
I know I bang on about Blackford but he is the only two footed left winger we have, perfect for crossing to Cassisdy or Oates, he is just left out in the cold.
Donaldson and Amond were awful, at least he changed it at half time and there was a slight improvement, Amond is slow and out bullied by 7 ft defenders, Cassidy wasn`t and looked a handful, 4 4 11 with Cassisdy up front and Munns just behind, he said he had 9 players who were the basis of the team, if that is correct we may not win the league this year

Exactly. First look at a proper National League side and, surprise surprise, it's the land of the giants. If Pools were supposed to zip around in midfield and pass them off the park, it never happened - we couldn't string a pass together.

The midfield was abysmal first half and they all deserved to be taken off. How Hawkins lasted 80 minutes is a complete mystery. Putting Oates and Cassidy on at least meant Pools could compete a bit better physically, but the standard of play didn't improve - two Route 1 sides with Dover still looking sharper. Thank Christ we weren't on the TV this week!

Featherstone will walk into this side when he's fully fit - and I bet Harrison is banging on Pam's door right now, asking for funds to sign a couple of the 'trialists.'

Agree Donnelly is no left back but, for the record, he had obviously been told to mark Dover's number 10 and it was Hawkins who was supposed to track back with their number 2 whenever he bombed forward.

Oates can at least be counted on to track back so him coming on to play wide left and keep an eye on the number 2 was a decent tactical switch at least.

The triallists were woeful except for Mahoney.

Based on what Harrison said he thought Franks could bring to the team and the way Franksy played first half up at Whitley Bay, I'd have money on him being offered a contract.

Just saying...

I wasn't there today but I like the sound of Mr Monkeybutt's 4-4-11 formation for future games.

Munns definitely struggled with tracking back, but there were a few occasions were Donnelly, seemingly without saying a word, followed a Dover player which pulled him out of position and just left the left back space completely empty and Dover simply chipped it into the space.

I don't think Amond was as bad as some have said, he was extremely frustrated being isolated up front, held the ball up well at times but had no one to feed it to. We were still poor but looked much better in the second half. Today proves we need to keep the ball on the floor as much as possible.