Some comments yesterday by Hignett on the injury situation don't make very good reading, with the manager basically accusing a couple of injured players of not looking after themselves well enough to speed up their rehab, and some others accused of not being willing to play through a bit of pain the way footballers did in his day.

Scurr in the Mail has had two goes at writing about it and in the second one has gone in hard:

https://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/sport/ ... ers-490379
Loughlin reports the same comments though:
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/sport ... ury-rehab/

The lads most in the firing line are the ones Hignett and the fans expect to make a huge difference on the pitch: Molyneux, Hawkes and Williams...

Dunno what to make of this. Hignett is too outspoken for his own good at times and I'm not sure that airing these concerns so publicly is a good idea. He's obviously feeling the pressure already after 4 games.

Got to say though that when Gateshead almost made the play offs last season with a small squad they must have had players turning out who were a long way from 100% at times.

Can't see where he names those three, but with Molyneux and Hawkes being out less time than Donaldson, I guess that makes sense.

Threaten them with National Service i say!

Scurr's first report of Hignett's comments has this:

"I don’t know how close [Luke Molyneux] is, he keeps saying he’s close but he’s still not on the training ground yet,”

“We’re looking at training and seeing if it’s something we’re doing in training, working the players too hard, is it fatigue because we’ve had a couple of calf strains but it’s not because we’ve got all the data and we know exactly what they’re doing – the book [buck] stops with the player."

An interesting point here is the fact that Donaldson missed virtually all of pre season and yet his two performances so far have been excellent.
Is all this pre season malarkey everything it's cracked up to be or is it a contributing factor to our injury list.
I'm not sure what the answer is on that one but it certainly needs looking at.
I agree with Hignett that modern footballers are molly coddled but I don't agree with airing his views in public.
Interestingly enough, Higgy comes out with we're not rushing so and so back before he's ready etc etc etc.
Managers are sometimes their own biggest enemy. It was only a few weeks ago he was saying they're all raring to go.
What we are not being told is how much pressure is coming from above, cos he definitely sounds like that is the case.
I don't know if it is an optional illusion or even a fallacy but opposing teams always seem to look fitter than us, especially in the last quarter of a game.

Agree with everything except your last sentence Mr. Derwent. Pools were totally on top in the last 10 minutes on Saturday when they were trying to get the lead back. It was the same against Sutton -they sat back all the second half and were using every time wasting trick in the book when Pools pressed.

Which is why I asked was it an illusion or a fallacy, Mr D.
The number of people who come out with the view is there however, and it has been repeatedly referred to on here.
I agree with your comment on Sutton but that is what teams do. They only do it because the refs in this league don't jump on it, like the ref did to Loach in the cup game with Gillingham. It is easily stamped out if there is a will to stamp it out.
It could be classed as crowd incitement cos it really does wind people up.

They didn't look any way tired at Maidenhead, counter attacked well in the last 10 minutes and kept the hosts at relative arms length.

I've just become ammuned to how shit and biased the refs are towards the opposition over the years.
Its not an excuse anymore but Higgy seems to use it as one everytime we don't win along with the injuries of course.
Anyway win these next 4 games and the play off target will look a lot closer.
UTP.

or a months loan at darlo.

[quote="kevin pooles gloves"]I've just become ammuned to how shit and biased the refs are towards the opposition over the years.
her indoors has got sick of me saying the reason we lost is we only had 11 men on the pitch. mind you it was better than in the dave jones months where i used to say the opposition manager was awake the full game.