No Passsion, No desire, No Fight at all in the full team that's the worst I have seen pools play no shots on target ( Not that I can can remember ) Pure bird shit!

Yep lets play 442 hoofball and get played of the park
Not 1 shot on goal how ever the better team won at a canter.
Shocking as normal.

any team with harrison in defence is going to struggle. should never have been re-signed when was released before, he's utterly woeful

can't understand logic in having george and featherstone too in a home game as your centre midfield. we have somehow managed to sign players who are worse than those we had last season which is some effort so 80% of team is the shit we have had for seasons and been massive parts of failure.

don't think harrison is helping himself but my god this is so bad to watch and can't see fans sticking around

I totally agree with the two posts above its embarrassing watching pools these days, I mean the teams that are comming here we should be beating this time 10 years ago I could never of imagined us in the same division as Boreham Wood and Guisley and just about scraping draws against poor national league sides, Just goes to show you how poor this league actually is we are a club that has been on a slippery slope for years and unfortunately I don't see us getting out of this division anytime soon I can see us doing a Wrexham or Macclesfield and lingering down there for years judging on today's display and as mentioned in the post above especially with Harrison in the back four God only knows how he made it as a professional player is behind me!

How long will it be before we have to read that we are only 4 points off a playoff spot?

If cassidy had someone to pick up the flick ons it would help, Rodney was dire and it was awful to watch, losing the will to live, tactically inept.

Penny finally dropping folks ?

That really was dire, absolutely soul destroying stuff. To not muster a shot on target yet again is nothing short of embarrassing. Having said that it's not really a surprise is it, it's what we've come to expect from a Craig Harrison side,negative, boring, aimless, disjointed, slow, poor game management, no threat and piss poor defending. After every game like that it's inevitable that Scott Harrisons name comes up yet again, are we really so desperate that this lad finds his name on the team sheet, have we had a central defender as poor as this lad in the last 25 years?!, he's utterly hopeless and if we concede it's generally down to him doing something wrong, can't for the life of me fathom out how any manager can pick him,absolute liability and should never ever play at this level. We have a severe lack of pace in this side as well and really lack pace on the wings,we can't break away at speed due to us being so slow, we really need some natural width, I feel sorry for our striker as they literally get no service.
Other points from today's game are Featherstone and George can't play in the same team, rodney should be nowhere near the team, is it just me or is Blair Adams fucking awful?? and on this performance I'm definitely back to thinking Craig Harrison hasn't got a clue!.

Spot on

Tacticly Inept, pedestrian, clueless, gutless hoof it anywhere football. Is it the manager or the players or both.

Never mind we might win the next 28 games. Then again!

Play offs, youre having a laugh!

You don't win football matches without having shots on target. Maybe people will now wake up and realise Harrison has not got a clue. Yes he's amassed a few points since our disastrous start but he's done that with a mixture of bad opposition finishing, superb keeping by Loach and more than a fair share of luck.
Today all that disappeared and we and Harrison were horribly exposed.
Like I said after the BOREham game something has to change and that opinion was emphatically underlined today.
Everyone is entitled to say it as they see, as I have done, and react accordingly.
My reaction is to say that, until changes are made I'm not watching that shite, season ticket or no season ticket.

The reality is now starting to set in that this is the way for Pools now - Mid table in the conference. Lucky to be there as Derwent has just said.

The club are going to have to stick with a tenner in because if we keep on offering up that level of shite we'll be sub 2,000 gates

I wouldnt give Harrison a penny to spend on this team. His signings barring 2 or 3 of them have been garbage. No chance of this team making it into the top 7. Lets get to 50 points and start all over again.

You should have said.

Hmmmm

I've been waiting for us to finally click into gear and take off, I've stopped now. It ain't gonna happen and I've lost faith. We have a team that still has no pattern emerging and for some bizarre reason we appear to be incapable of playing for the first forty five minutes and wake up at half time.
I really don't know where we go from here. It's worrying and frustrating.

The most bizarre one is Munns. Essentially his marquee signing with a really good reputation at this level. Bought to play in a system he very quickly scrapped and now finds himself surplus to requirements.

Today's result was a long time coming, we've being riding our luck in the league for ages.

regarding Munns, couldn't agree more. Looks a tidy player.

It was significantly worse today than even I have envisaged. This hapless side is lacking in quality right across the park as i have said since Day 1 and there wasn't even the consolation of effort today - make no mistake, this was an utter shambles with many players simply going through the motions. As I have always maintained, Harrison (Craig) is clearly out of his depth in this League, it is now time to abandon embarrassing talk of a play-off place and concentrate on retaining our National League place and build for next season when hopefully the Harrisons (Craig & Scott) will no longer blight our club. Time to shift the Chuckle Brothers out Aunty Pam.

Today was as bad as I have seen us play for a long time. There was no structure to the formation which (im not 100% sure what it was) and players caught out of position all over the pitch. I don't think we managed to get 4 passes together in the opposition half.

We had a decent formation working with Featherstone, Woods and Hawkins in the middle and Deverdics at left back. Now Woods is benched Hawkins is binned all together and Deverdics is getting put wide right? We didn't look like a team that's nearly half way through a season we looked like a bunch of strangers just turned up and had a game on Greyfields.

A very disappointing performance but thankfully a chance on Tuesday to put it right. A massive performance is required and there really should be a few changes.

First time we put 4 passes together was from a short corner which ended up going all the way back to Loach.

Took my 9 year old son, he doesn`t like football but wanted to come, only a £1 so in for a penny etc, after 10 minutes he started asking about the advertising boards, what etc and then the girls in pink, who are they, I said to him " are you watching the football"?, he said " No, it`s rubbish, can we go yet"?

This is part of the problem for Pam, extra 700 people in and served up that bilge, unless you are a masochist, you aint going back!

For anyone who watched the first four games there on Match of the Day, the quality of football was frightening in comparison to what we saw today. Totally different world obviously but our inability throughout this season to develop passages of play; create chances and at least try to contribute to an entertaining game does raise the question of whether 90 minutes is worth £20...

The general standard has dropped significantly - and last season's League 2 was pretty poor.

4 points from the last 15 at home in the league.....that's relegation form......utter dilge, you can't fool the fans, we've been riding our luck as has been said earlier, the team has completely no balance, looks disjointed, and I'm not sure we have the personnel to put it right. A poor result on Tuesday and the season is as good as over.

I don't know how long it takes to find your best team, but once you find it you tend to stick with it. Harrison is like a kid with a Lego who knocks it down and rebuilds it every week because he can. He's a tinker man more obsessed with the technical tweeking of the team but apparently incapable of realising most of his team ain't got the brains or the fight to turn his plans into reality.
I see no sign of change any time soon, if ever.

A bit of credit is due to Aldershot. They started slowly, but Pools had no answer to their pressing game in the second half and they look a good, young, well organised side who are probably going to be right up there at the end of the season.

Pools have no chance of making the play offs on that performance. No point in playing 2 strikers if one of them has as awful an afternoon as Rodney - he made no impression and should have been hooked at half time. Another terrible ref let their defenders get away with murder, but still - man up and get yourself in the game!

Woods didn't do the half-time warm up and I felt sure he was coming on for the full 45 minutes - again, baffling that he didn't. A Featherstone - George combination in central midfield looks like a waste of time - how many times in the first half was the ball passed back to Loach for a punt upfield?

Added to which, the fullbacks seemed incapable of prompting any attacking play. Amen to Deverdics reverting to left back - Blair Adams' range of passing ineptitude is embarrassing and Magnay was a huge miss on the other flank. Richardson did OK defensively but he doesn't look comfortable going forward.

All in all, I'm going to be listening to Tuesday's match on the radio - can't face another dose of that twice in a four days!

Brian Honour was quite critical of the crowd after about 15 minutes yesterday, Featherstone (or George?) had the ball and went backover to much grumbling and quite a lot of booing and he reckoned as a result we lost our way after that because instead of retaining possession we went more direct with the players lacking a bit of bravery to go for the safer option of ball retention. Both him and Mark Simpson agreed as well that in instance of the booing Featherstone had chosen completely the right option. Fair comments?

There is a particularly loud 'expert' (and Yakker, sorry to say) who stands near the halfway line on the Millhouse side. A constant moaner and complete pain in the arse, he was dispensing advice about Pools' negative play from about 5 minutes in yesterday.

Trouble is, there was so little creativity from Pools on display in the dullest first 30 minutes that you could ever wish to see that for once the majority of the crowd were in silent agreement with the gobshites.

There was a group of about four blokes stood behind me who were at it from kickoff never mind five minutes in. Rodney was their prime target but I think everybody else got abuse. The old one capped it all when he started on Loach, loudly branding him as a shit keeper and ridiculously stating that we’ll never do any good with him in goal. It was utterly cringeworthy embarrassing stuff. If we are going to lose people who decide not to go back I hope it’s them. I wouldn’t even give them the credit of calling them supporters.

I've been posting on here for years and I can't ever remember criticising any supporters for their comments about what is happening on the pitch.
They pay their money and they make comments on what they see. I don't necessarily agree with it but I accept that, for whatever reason, they see it as their entitlement. The only exceptions I would make are racist or abusive comments. If they are making racist or abusive comments then report them.
I find it really nauseating that we are watching absolute tripe at the moment and people are starting to blame the crowd.
The fans of Hartlepool United are the last people I would blame.
The club are very lucky to have such loyal fans after what we have been getting served up for years. So one or two relieve their frustration. So fucking what.
If the players can't take it, then go stacking shelves at Tesco.

The economics of the club is better to have 3000+ fans in having a little moan now and again than have 2000 in clapping defeats.

Good post mr derwent.

It was Brian Honour who made the comment, he's played plenty at the Vic and has probably experienced it first hand. I did find it little bit odd through that the team was getting booed 15 minutes into the match. It's never going to help the players is it?

At the same time it is of course a two way street and the players and management have to give the crowd something to get behind. But I also agree and it's something opposition managers have commented on this season that as a home player the Vic can be an intimidating place to play especially a young inexperienced player. Maybe it's one of the reasons why our recent away record is better than home? It is frustrating but a supporter being critical of their own players is and will always be counter productive.

But it’s really not gonna help is it??

At the end of the day they are still human beings, some may find it motivates them whereas others getting on their back will just help to destroy their confidence. Personally having a load of people shouting how shit I am all game would not inspire me, especially when I think to how I was when I was Rodney’s age. Especially when a lot of it was nonsense anyway from where I was standing - complaining about him not getting his foot in when he was ten yards from the ball.

And the ones who called for him to play 442 don’t seem to want to admit that it doesn’t work - just come up with vague comments about him setting up too negatively, with the 11 players back at corners the main argument to back it up.

Yes, fair comments. It's quite embarrassing to be honest. First 15/20 mins we were fairly in control, aldershots only tactic was to give it to the centre half who would hoof a ball in the direction of Richardson. They'd obviously pin pointed him as a weak link, but he won everything so they were lost. We had a fair bit of the ball but again had 0 creativity in midfield, George and Featherstone to far away from Cassidy and Rodney anonymous. Then the boos started and Scott Harrison decided to start lumping it forward, which lead to all of the back 5 following suit.

The only period we looked remotely like creating chances was when deverdics went into midfield and we played a sort of 4-1-4-1 formation. Sure enough Harrison dragged him back to left back and we had nothing again. We quite simply have to have him or munns in midfield. Get everyone to take 10 steps forward when the opposition have the ball in defence and stop letting them pick passes out. At one point George chased down the keeper, then left back, then right back, and our next furthest forward player was on the half way line. And this was at 1-0

The crap about retaining possession is nonsense, we pass it back to the keeper to retain it and Loach hoofs it forward to the opposition who then gain the ball, rather than us trying to pass the ball forward and yes we may lose it but that is what happens with a hoof as even if we win the ball in the air, nobody is there to pick it up, Rodney isn`t the type of player to read the game and play off Cassisdy, I would suggest Munns is though.

I wonder if any of our managers will ever grow a spine and try blooding younger players rather than a shoddy regular, Jacob Owen in the youth team is more composed, quicker than Harrison and yes he is playing against youth team opposition but if you don`t try the shoe on, you won`t know if it fits!

The time when people booed Featherstone was utterly ridiculous. Blair Adams turned back on himself and gave Featherstone who was the only player who made any effort to even show for the ball to be fair a pass. He was facing our goal with two opposition players closing him down behind so he played the ball back to the keeper. As opposed to getting tackled and them having a 3 on 2 break away. This was 15 minutes in to the game by the way at 0 - 0.

Not that it made much difference like we hadn't created anything before that point either but it's a sign of a very impatient crowd not sure why that was the reaction at that time though.

Football fans in general seem to take pleasure in booing their own side but Hartlepool more than most in my experience.

I don't understand the mentality, it's self defeating. Most people perform far better after a pat on the back rather than a kick up the arse in public.

So we stick with Harrison who is an accident waiting to happen and anybody with pace will stroll past him, or try an upcoming young lad ?

I know what I would go for but I would play Blackford on the wing also, somebody capable of delivering a ball!

19 goals for and 19 goals against after 20 games....... that is the problem.

Entertainment value 2/10.

No chips.

Who are these people who are calling for 442? As far as I am concerned he can play any formation he likes, he's the manager. My choice is whether I back him or not and at the moment I don't.
What I don't accept is watching games where we don't have one single effort on target and that leads me to criticise, complain and have a go at him.
The crowd are booing because they are getting fed up of what is happening in front of them.
They could do what other fans do and stay away.
As sure as eggs is eggs, if nothing changes, stay away they will.

Wasn't Ledger on the bench ? He is a centre half isn't he ?

Have you seen his car registration LE13GER............that must have cost a fortune!

How much is he on ?

Results or entertainment? Some might say it's a mixture, a 50:50 mix. Harrison has apparently gone for the 0:O mix and that's the road to ruin.

Can I put this simpler, the footy's cack.

Yesterday was a tiny, tiny fraction better than the Fylde game, in other words probably second in worst games I've seen in the last few years.

However, now the anger and frustration has subsided a bit....we've lost twice in 14 games and lost for the first time in what? 8? Not a reason to go all trigger happy and bin the manager.

We have to remember very, very few teams bounce straight back up. It is a rare occurrence.

I will stick by what I felt at the start of the season. Steady the ship this season, play offs are a bonus and go with the three year plan we supposedly have in place for getting back in the football league.

I am actually growing to like the manager. I don't necessarily agree with everything he does (in fact I question a good few decisions) and says but we're hardly massively in the shit and all teams have days where they just don't fucking turn up for whatever reason. It wasn't long ago that he was being applauded for not fucking about when things aren't going well and making changes (South Shields was it?).

It really was truly demoralising yesterday, we were properly and utterly fucking terrible. But having got over myself a bit, I vote for calm and patience.

Regarding those calling for 4-4-2, I’ve seen comments after the game of ‘I’m sick of this 4-3-3’ and ‘why won’t he give up with this one up front crap?’

Those in question either won’t admit to it or are too thick to see what’s in front of them.

Yes but you are missing the point...it is all down to leaving eleven men back at corners...

In all fairness we didn’t concede from a corner so credit to Harrison where it’s due?