These two haven't exactly set the league on fire this season. Maybe they would have been more successful if they had stayed together at Pools.
Of course we will never know but it is a thought and they did compliment each other.
If only eh.

21 league goals between them isn't too shabby a return. Think you're right though, they worked well in tandem and might have got a few more for us.

If Mansfield manage to avoid getting beat on Saturday Oates will have another play-offs to look forward too. Armstrong will be jealous - even with his goals Harrogate are a bottom half of the table side and no better than Pools.

Oates hasn't set the League alight! Recently Mansfield have struggled, from playing us until the last 2 games, Oates not playing except the end against us. He scored some excellent goals an provided many for others, Football League show every week. When he came on against us he was on another scale to our players. Armstrong was partly helped by Oates regaining full fitness when he was here, He couldn't get in Salford team but is above average at this level I would say. Together they would have had us close to the Play Offs.

The Oates Armstrong partnership is one of the season’s what ifs, but like all what ifs, there’s always those nasty little facts that taint the picture.
The biggest drawback was our late charge that incredibly burst through despite expecting to fall at the next hurdle, but we did it.
Oates was no doubt looking for a new club a while before our surge, because we certainly weren’t looking like promotion candidates till the very end, so it’s understandable on his part and a two year contact with a league club close to home was probably perfect for him, so the foundations were laid long before on his departure.
Armstrong was never our player to wonder about in the first place, money bags Harrogate (can’t believe I said that) were always going to win any bidding war that arose.
There’s this popular lingering myth that we let them slip through our fingers, when no such thing happened, we were cheated by timing and incontinent financial bidding by rivals.
Oates appears ok at Mansfield and Armstrong is a ‘bird in a gilded cage’ in a sterile atmosphere, but wether the money compensates one can only speculate.
They were however, much missed combative, direct players, something we haven’t seen all season sadly.
Just another couple of ‘what if’s’ most teams have in their ‘disappointment portfolio’.

we do not know if they are both still enjoying the game and the money is just allowing them to get through. players do leave even if the money is right because they fall out with the game itself or a club. imagine we have all dreaded going into work even if the pay slip is good at the end of the week. many teams well above pools are looking for a striking partnership that really works. the sad thing is we found one and it could be years before we find another.

accrington..."the sad thing is we found one and it could be years before we find another."

..i get the feeling you are interested in perpetuating a myth as a way of getting those "answers" you keep harping on about.... or some similar agenda??

"There’s this popular lingering myth that we let them slip through our fingers, when no such thing happened, we were cheated by timing and incontinent financial bidding by rivals."[snowy]

Know its answers i will not get and none of us either. understand about the timing and bidding by clubs but the facts are that both players were worth more to pools than they were to the clubs that signed them. No matter what the circumstances were it will never stop me being annoyed by the situation happening even though the club was not totally responsible for it. Could it have been handled better in our favour, well i do not know and as usual we,ll never know the complete full facts about it.

accrington..."well i do not know and as usual we,ll never know the complete full facts about it."

errr....you mean.. the truth is being hidden from us....we deserve answers....again...? ffs

I would hazard a guess that both of them now fully realise what they had and how much they gelled together. I dare suggest that both of them have had thoughts along the lines I am painting and just maybe a doubt or two that what they did might have been the wrong choice.
Of course it is all ifs, buts and maybes. For me I firmly believe that if we had them this season, Saturday would not be our last game.
Agents turn players heads but not always in the interest of the players, simply because if agents don't generate constant movement of their clients they don't eat, as the saying goes.
I'll bet advising them to stay together for another season might be in their best interest was never even considered.
Ah well never mind.

Of course I understand why players move but how many times have we and other teams seemingly had a winning formula only for players within that team to decide to leave thinking they’re better off elsewhere for it all to go tits up and they up looking for a team the following season.

Why the penny hasn’t dropped with them to stick with a side when they’re onto a good thing instead of gambling for £20 more per week is a massive shame. Oates was in the best form of his career and yet here we are again with him probably looking for another club very soon.

If they’re going up the divisions then I get that but to stay in the same division and chance your arm when in great form is daft (because that move up the divisions will only come when you’re at your best…stay where you are, back yourself and then go to a higher division)

I think Oates is a late developer I was not surprised when he left Pools the first time and I certainly was not happy when he came back after being freed by Morcombe. He did not start that well but turned a corner and ended up player of the year. His only flaw I see is that he regularly gets substituted late on in games.

The sun thing is because he can’t maintain that level of effort for the full 90. That’s a bit of a drawback…knowing you’ll need to sub him

I always think Armstrong looks a forlorn figure now, playing football in an atmosphere free vacuum, surrounded fans who must have been manufactured for the occasion, a sort of footballing Westworld. It may indeed pay well, but there’s a bit more to the game than that surely.

Some people think that they already had deals virtually done before that dramatic finish to last season but if that is even remotely true some of the current squad could take example from the effort and commitment they both gave us right to the last kick. I am forever grateful to them for that because without their commitment we probably would still be in oblivion.
I do wish they had stayed though and deep down they probably do as well.

derwent..."I am forever grateful to them for that because without their commitment we probably would still be in oblivion."

..100% agree...and oates got absolute dogs abuse from some goons in the NWC on his return...shameful...

We would easily have been in the top 7 with them two, the forward line we have now would struggle in the conference.

yes on both counts. gone from expecting us to score to now when its a shock when we do. even games we have won our goals seem to have come from nowhere and not battering teams till they concede.

Conference North or even Sunday League.

They’d struggle in the shallow end of the bath.

just them decisions in the final third

We would be 5th / 6th if them 2 had been our forward line this season. No doubt about it. Shudda wudda cudda as always though. Nm. We move on