A bit early, but I'm bored.

A game we have to win. If you want promotion or certainly the title I believe you have to take at least 4 points off those clubs in and around you towards the top of the division.

Good news for us, is that Craig Eastmond, IMO one of the best midfielders in this division picked up a 5th yellow last night and should be missing on Saturday. Eastmond is the beating heart of Sutton, and although they have other dangerous players ( there is a reason they are top ), Eastmond missing could be the difference between Sutton previously coming for a win, to now being content with a draw.

1-1 Johnson

Hoping for a reaction to the toothless performance at Weymouth.

2-1 Armstrong, Oates

Hartlepool P - P Sutton

National League confirm suspension of the season at 8pm on Friday evening.

1-1 Armstrong No fans

Draw or Defeat.

Never beaten them and last week lost to a team that had not won at home all season. A hangover from not playing matches for a while.

Unfortunately I'll go with another loss. 0-2

We will lose!!!

Here's the plan. Bring back Keith (Houchen). Hold on...didn't Sutton Utd beat Coventry with Keith in the side the season after City won the FA cup against Spurs? A must win I'd say looking at the games in hand Sutton Utd have in hand. These are the teams we need to beat. OK Weymouth was poor but let's hope it's a blip. It's probably all academic anyway 'cos the powers that be will probably say hang on, we can't have little old (sorry big down there now Hartlepool winning anything. This is all silly of course but so is every other thing going on right now. Would like to know how Charlie Wyke has been doing so well with Sunderland after doing sweet FA here. My two two sons reckon its because he's in a better team? Is it as simple a solution as that? If it goes ahead then Pools 1 Sutton Utd 1. Shit referee. Controversial sending off. Stream goes on and off and somebody decides to rebuild The Brus Arms and The Powlett Hotel. Then he woke up (hate that word) to find that it was raining, Pools tortured them and lost 0-1. Pools looking at bring in Stevie Howard on a short term contract to partner Armstrong.

Sutton will be far too strong for us 0-2

OK. Pools 1 Sutton United 1 Armstrong

2-1 Pools win

The centre forward goal machine and the centre back goal machine.

i,m going to be truthful for once. pools 1 sutton 3.

Changing to away banker.
There's certain games we are nailed on to lose.
This is one of them.
Do hope I'm wrong like .

Some strange predictions on here, given we only lost for first time in ages last week, and our home form has picked up, and Sutton are missing their best player. This is a game we should be relishing and up for, I have my concerns as well though, this game will once and for all, tell us how good or not we are.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Williams start today to offer us something a little different, and I would play Bloomfield up front alongside Armstrong.

like certain games we usually win. stockport and halifax at home come quickly to mind and the opposites at their places.

If i remember Sutton have a lot of big bulky players at the back, And they would love Bloomfield playing, like for like.
What they would not like to play against is pace, players running at them.

2-0, both pens.

I don't know of a defender alive who likes players running at them with pace. Of running at players and pace alone are no guarantee of success, but I get what you are saying. I just think Bloomfield offers more in the air, and is a better finisher than Oates. We'll see. He has went with same side anyway, with a plenty of options on the bench for once.

Standard of our crossing so far is abysmal.

Oates. Quality. Get in.

Gerrin ! A header as well

Loving that we're winning this one.. fingers crossed.

Told you we'd lose !

And we'll lose at Halifax as well.

Excellent result. Sutton looked dangerous at times but the defence did great to keep them out. Killip hardly had a save to make.

Glad to be wrong

Hopeing the season doesn't end.
Is there some meeting / vote on Monday.

Great result, a big well done, we passed a big test today against a very good Sutton side. Still missing too many chances, that might come back to haunt us further down the line, but today one goal was enough, as Sutton couldn't tried and failed to break us down. Probably best performance of the season.

Great result, but in a points per game (PPG) table we have slipped to sixth. That defeat to Weymouth was important, we'd be second if we'd won it (I can dream):

Pos Team P GD Pts PPG
1 Torquay 20 23 43 2.15
2 Stockport 17 11 31 1.82
3 Sutton U 17 11 31 1.82
4 Notts C 17 9 30 1.76
5 Maidenhead 17 3 30 1.76
6 Hartlepool U 19 7 33 1.74
7 Solihull Moors 15 5 25 1.67
8 Eastleigh 17 6 26 1.53
9 Altrincham 20 2 30 1.50
10 Wrexham 18 4 27 1.50
11 Bromley 16 5 23 1.44
12 Boreham Wood 17 5 24 1.41
13 Halifax 20 7 27 1.35
14 Chesterfield 18 7 24 1.33
15 Aldershot 18 -1 24 1.33
16 Dag & Red 18 -7 22 1.22
17 Woking 19 -1 23 1.21
18 Yeovil 17 -4 20 1.18
19 Wealdstone 18 -13 21 1.17
20 King's Lynn 17 -15 18 1.06
21 Weymouth 19 -12 15 0.79
22 Dover 15 -23 10 0.67
23 Barnet 17 -29 9 0.53

Notts Co won at Weymouth, Stockport won at Woking , quite convincingly, both places were we came unstuck, just a thought.

The PPG table above probably reflects our true position once other teams get their games in hand out of the way. For now though the real table tells us we are 2nd, and that is as much as we can expect, as Torquay are way out in front, despite a blip of late, due to Danny Wright being out until Easter after a hamstring op.

Interesting what's happened to Barnet, gone from a promotion side of last two seasons to bottom of the league

Very happy to be proved wrong again. A big well done Pools to steal Horden's words. I can't believe the work rate that Johnston got through. His head seemed to be everywhere when they threatened. Others might not agree but I think That DC should have moved heaven and earth to secure Tyler McG for a bit longer. Crawford was very keen to get at them despite it not working out for him. Come on DC give Grey a real go at some of these defences starting with FC Halifax on Tuesday night IF it get's played that is. I get what your saying Sloop about having games in hand but you have to win them. Better to be up there and let them chase then vice versa. Monday is going to prove very interesting.

What a great result and a clean sheet too. Nicking important wins is the hallmark of a promotion side.

the only real downside of a really good performance. could have scored more but so should they. just about a fair result for me. did look like it was going to be a 1 nil game and for my nerves i wish we could have kept it goaless till time added on. thought shelton had a good game and decided to turn up unlike he does in some games. having 10 outfielders doing their ob does help. roll on tuesday night. was hoping for a halifax win yesterday as they are more in and out of form than pools are.

wonder if his eyes were open.

Given that he scored, I'm guessing not

DC says in the post match interview it was like a play off game. I can see where he is coming from, but if it was a play off game, we would probably get beat 2-0 in the second leg. This is why we need to be putting our chances away, because if we do get promoted it will be via the play offs. Firstly we need to finish in the best play off spot, you really need to finish in 2nd or 3rd place to have a fighting chance of going up IMO. Compared to other clubs our goal difference is inferior, need to be winning more games 2-0 or 3-0 ideally. We still haven't really hammered a team, Wealdstone was a glorious opportunity to win 4-0 or 5-1 but only won 3-1 and even then, we were under the cosh for last 15 mins, and on a bad day they could've pulled it back.

I think we are going to find the games away to the mid table teams difficult, time will tell. It seems if teams can snuff out Sterry then it renders us impotent up front, if Sterry is allowed to get on his game, then the forwards get the service they need. Think the game on Tuesday will be very difficult indeed , exactly the sort of game , where if you don't play well, you still need to come away with a draw, that's what we never did at Weymouth, and listening to the interview , sounds like it irked DC.

[quote="horden"][

This is why we need to be putting our chances away, because if we do get promoted it will be via the play offs. Firstly we need to finish in the best play off spot, you really need to finish in 2nd or 3rd place to have a fighting chance of going up IMO. Compared to other clubs our goal difference is inferior, need to be winning more games 2-0 or 3-0 ideally. We still haven't really hammered a team, Wealdstone was a glorious opportunity to win 4-0 or 5-1 but only won 3-1 and even then, we were under the cosh for last 15 mins, and on a bad day they could've pulled it back.

with so many teams with a couple of games in hand of pools and only 3 points behind its going to be tight anyway. there are circumstances were a single goal victory is all thats needed like yesterday. goal difference is certainly going to come into it by the end of the season. its games where we are winning quite easily where we put up the shutters and see that horrible seeing the game out. seems something that over the years has crept into the game more and more. score 3 and attempt to get the 4th and the 5th. rather than treat the last 20 minutes with pointless substitutions in a glorified training session. think we certainly really need to do someone because of that torquay defeat and would really love it to be at halifax.

Marked improvement in the second half, pressed the ball a lot better and got just reward. I think Armstrong needs a goal or two to get him back on track but a great result. If we keep to that standard we'll be thereabouts.
Hopefully we take a similar performance to the "is it on or what stadium" on Tuesday night. I'll forecast a waterlogged pitch.

We beat the team one above us in the league.

Should have score more, should of played better,, need to blah blah blah. 3 points thank you very much. Get in. Come on Pools.

Torquay couldn't beat them last week.

Torquay beat Weymouth though, and Sutton did, its a funny old game.

I don't expect us to beat Dover next satday if on.
But knew we were gunna beat Stockport a few weeks back.
Ye it's a funny old game

can only remember stockport beating us once at the vic and can only remember us winning there once, we have had a couple of 6 nil hammerings there as well late 70,s early 80,s.

depends how their cheap primark covers work. really heavy frost last night on top of soggy ground. snow forecast tonight from 2am till about 10 heavy at times. just cannot see them putting too much effort in to get the pitch playable somehow.