I really hope he doesn't waste a wage this season .... but more than that I hope he gets in the team and plays well.

Any one know if he looked the part this evening? (the fact that it's a pre-season friends taken into acct).

He did well in the 30 mins he got tonight, I'd love to see the lad get a break this season and play a good few games. He looked pretty sharp so fingers crossed. Wouldn't say any of the trialists really stood out but McLean and Mustoe were the better of the 4.
Ofosu looks useful and fast, Bloomfield is a big strong unit, ferguson looked very direct and MacDonald seemed decent. Think if we get a right back in and some cover at centre half we will have a decent side.

Just finished work. I hope to hell Luke is fit enough to get a contract cas I really believe he is the only player on the books who could and would quarentee a succesful season. Please be fit and ready Willo

really hope your wish could come true. my only doubt would be how long it would be before he broke down and be out for months on end. the club cannot afford to gamble anymore.

Use him as a Supersub.
Er I'm sure I said that last pre season.
What will be will be Life is a gamble.

Nobody doubts his ability when fit but he has hardly played in the last four years. Can Pools afford to take such a gamble, we have given him two seasons for no return.

Does anybody actually know how much he costs us. I wouldn't be surprised if he is payed on appearances and if so isn't that much of a gamble, especially if they find a solution to his injury woes.

He currently doesn't have a contract with us, but he will no doubt be getting to use our physio facillities. His first year with us he admitted in the mail he was on a very good contract. Last year i got the impression he was on a smaller basic wage and an appearance based contract. This year with our wage budget been dramatically reduced I think we need to be very careful offering him any sort of basic wage. I watched him play on Friday and he looked ok, certainly no better than other midfielders we had playing.

his problem seems to be numerous injury woes and not just one. know having one physical injury can kick off another one but how long can pools spend on him.

Cheers mate.

I did say injury woeS and not woe which would indicate more than one.
Your question "but how long can pools spend on him" Are you referring to time or money or both?
I'll have a try at answering for you.
If it is time then I suppose as long as they like. If it is money, Mr Pitlad has told us he is not currently under contract so they might not be paying anything at all but I haven't a clue which is why I asked "Does anybody know how much he costs us" in the first place.
At the end of the day the club will do what the club will do but I am interested in what he costs the club if anybody can throw any light on that question.
There will be an end to this saga but when where and how is anybody's guess.

[quote="derwent"][

I did say injury woeS and not woe which would indicate more than one.
Your question "but how long can pools spend on him" Are you referring to time or money or both?
I'll have a try at answering for you.
If it is time then I suppose as long as they like.
even if williams is not getting paid by the club people who are looking after him at the club are. i would not mind for one minute if actually had played a load of games and received a bad injury. however for someone who has hardly kicked a ball in anger for the club there seems a lot of time and effort being spent on him. hope the next pools player who receives a career threatening injury gets the same time and effort put into them especially ones who have actually played.

As I said there will be an end to this saga. I don't know why the club seem to spend a lot of time and effort on him ( as you put it) but the hard fact is that they do. The club, for reasons best known to them, have decided to persevere with their efforts to get a return from Mr Williams. Maybe they will and maybe they won't but it is their decision to make.
As I don't have all the facts in front of me, I can't really criticise or praise their decision so I don't. All I can do is ask questions and hope to get answers.
Pools have demonstrated in the past that they are prepared to look after their walking wounded, Trigger and Brownie being the perfect examples, so I can only assume that they will continue to do so. I too hope they would do that but difficult times are upon us and difficult decisions are going to have to be faced. The "Norm" is changing so who knows what will happen in the future.
Do the club know something regarding LW's situation? I don't know but if they do know something they are not, so far, sharing that something with us.
Personally I'd love him to be an effective player for us but, like everybody else, I'm not holding my breath.

i think we all can agree on that.

Pools have a lot more to worry about at the minute than Luke Williams. It's not that unusual for the club to let players train with them - Jason Kennedy did it last season before he was offered a contract. It looks as if Williams is taking one last opportunity to prove his fitness and I doubt very much that he's getting any special consideration. The 'Boro mafia' is long gone and Raj Singh and Dave Challinor are both hard-nosed about their priorities at Pools.

BTW, for anyone who hasn't noticed, highlights of the Morpeth and Blyth games and post-match interviews with Challinor are up on the OS. All 3 goals scored against Pools came straight down the middle of the pitch. Just saying...

Whilst agreeing with the above there is slightly different circumstances. Trigger and Brown had given a lot to Pools and Kennedy was training with us similar to a trialists.

On his showings so far, it won't be long before Ferguson is back playing in the football league, unfortunately I doubt it will be with us

The Bionic Man returns with a 4 goal blast.
Albeit against Tickle Rovers.

Brandon were very good sports to step in at the last minute and give Pools a chance to get back in the swing of opening the Vic up for games after 6 months. In the circumstances it seems almost ungrateful to thrash them 12-0.

The scoreline is irrelevant in terms of preparations for the start of the National League season, but pretty big for Luke Williams. On the pitch 73 minutes, scored 4 good goals - if he's fit to play against the Middlesbrough XI and does well again he'll surely be close to earning a new deal.

It proves Williams has the quality, but we already knew that. I am sure he did the same thing against Macclesfield last pre-season, a Macclesfield side cobbled together with kids and a kit without numbers on the back .. look what happened 12 months later ? sound familiar ?

Williams may excel in these games, but can he do it in NL? my guess is NO. I imagine Brandon were told to go easy on him yesterday, one crunching tackle in the NL and he could be finished. The Northern League could be were he ends up playing shortly. Shildon and Stockton Town will be watching with interest.

Agree it was good of Brandon to help us out, and why was Rhys Oates not playing? surely he needed some goals to boost his confidence.

Rhys said on the Mixlr commentary that he was carrying a knock to his knee which had swollen up - hence the commentary stint.

Cheers ! Thought it might be something like that, didn't think DC was that daft not to play him.

So Williams would get kicked in the NL but not in the Northern League?

We're all agreed that if he's ever fit enough to play regularly his standard is way above both. It's a big if, not a decision that Challinor would take lightly this season of all seasons. But if Buster and Jake Simpson say Williams' physical conditioning really has turned a corner it's a live possibility.

I think at Northern League standard he would boss it, no one would get near him, but can't see his body standing up to the rigours of NL and above

'Highlights' are on Pools TV now. Definitely no tackles flying in! Great exercise in social distancing.

Good sense as usual from Dave Challinor:

https://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/sport/football/hartlepool-united-continue-be-cautious-former-middlesbrough-midfielder-luke-williams-despite-four-goal-return-pre-season-friendly-2977829

Challinor is sensible, but previous managers were cautious with Williams as well, so this is old news, there is more to this than meets the eye, the bit Challinor says towards the end of the article is more telling

“He knows what he needs to do and it’s been a tough time for him. But there are differences in terms of what he needs to do to be able to play and what he needs to do to be part of our team for the coming season".

Doesnt sound too good to me, the sooner this Williams saga is over the better, its dragged on far too long.