Website says Hartley sees him as a number 10, fingers crossed he provides what we need, really not happy we didn’t bring in another centre back though, that will cost us

Played 48 games for Barnsley in the championship since 2019.....must be good at something that will help a league 2 side

Yes and no - started 15 games in the championship for Barnsley plus 16 sub appearances, and 2 sub appearances for them in League 1 this season. The rest were cup appearances. He's versatile -has played left back, wide left, wide right, left midfield and right midfield for them. Agree he should bring a bit of class to Pools at our level.

he might have to play all those positions in a single game for pools. mind you who out of our present squad would ever make the bench as a non playing sub for barnsley or any championship club.

Sounds like a very technical player who has been played mostly out of position (as a Left back) for the last few years. Hopefully he's the missing link in midfield.

We need a new centre back desperately and hopefully a free agent comes in soon. There's a few decent ones still out there so hopefully PH can get one in. Feels very much like the deadline day Challinor had in his last season for us, wanted 2 forwards (in this case 4 players) and got a left back.

Always the January transfer period I suppose.

So the summer recruitment is over.
Its been top notch.
League One here we come.

[quote="Krampesh"]

We need a new centre back desperately and hopefully a free agent comes in soon.
they are usually free agents because they are crap or have a problem. if we sign one it will possibly be a defensive version of our old mate fondop.

I think I’d take a fondop over Murray on current form

Matty Longstaff has fallen a long way from scoring the winner for the Mags against Man U to 5th bottom in League 2.

The crack up there yesterday morning was that he was going to Barnsley but that obviously fell through. It's a long drive past the Vic to flaming Colchester

No Joe White either so it looks like we're off the Bar Codes' Christmas card list.

Out of curiosity I just had a look at a list of free agent centre backs. The best one (on paper) is this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Willis_(footballer)

Played 179 games for Coventry and 50 for Sunderland. Only 28 years old.

Anyone know anything about him?

Is there a loan window ?

As far as I know, that has closed as well except in the National League.

It's been a bloody joke hasn't it?

Its called taken advantage of people who truly love Hartlepool United Football Club to generate season ticket sales to benifit owners. When you are dealing with supporters its vile but extremely easy to take full advantage of the love they have for there team. How I wish we could find another Sir Harold Horsey a true genuine Chairman with true values.

Looks to have been out injured for a year so could be this seasons Jordan Cook/Luke Williams?

Nailed on signing, then !

I can only assume Sing is in the process of exiting the club with his obsession of keeping the payroll as low as possible.
New owners not Administration please.
No apologies if this offends his little fan club.
UTP.

Hopefully

If he is running the payroll down why has he employed a Performance Director and a Recruitment Manager ?

Its going to be a tough season.
Perhaps the lack of spending is entirely prudent given the cost of powering the floodlights for night and mid winter games?
No one else may have thought of this and they will all go bankrupt and we will win the league by default.

Why the sadness and anger, Rejoice, your repeated predictions of doom and visions of failure may come true and we can all go to hell in a handcart…….

If Hartley turned down the initial approach due to the budget then accepted an improved budget, how bad must the first budget have been!

It may not be a BAD budget, It may be the budget was miss spent.
I think its plain for all to see that PH misjudged League 2.
And is now paying the price for his inept signings.

Hope things have turned after our 1st win, Tomorrow will tell us.

Maybe there is a wage cap in place so maybe we can only sign players who are within that so miss out on a load of targets. Not one of our new players will be on big money I'd imagine

You’ve been assuming this ‘scenario’ since day one!

He turned it down probably because of the terms he was offered.

Isn’t this a self defeating logic….? He did sign, so he must have been happy with things after the renegotiation, which is common practice in football, not many managers accept the first offer on face value and it ain’t always about the money.

thats a bigger joke than pools transfer activity. teams are firstly limited in numbers to the size of their squad and secondly limited in time to when they can bring players in. then they,ll be also fined for playing a weakened side in the pizza cup. makes the whole thing a lottery with injuries and suspensions and we all know pools will be last in a lottery.

Pools will have to look at free agents at some point. 24 players including 3 goalies ain't going to get us through to January without a crisis or three created by injuries and suspensions - and that's before we start worrying about whether this squad is good enough even at full strength to get us off the bottom.

Hartley said himself that he wanted 3 or 4 new players in. He got one. Whatever the ins and outs of what went on at deadline day, it's not enough.

billy...."It's been a bloody joke hasn't it?"

..year on year of constantly running down our club with posts on here by this clown .....my guess is he is a twisted little darlo loid in disguise and this is his sick little hobby....lets head back in time to 2015 for a trip down memory lane shall we...and what do we find ?....just the same old same old utter shite....and there's plenty more of it on here as i say its been constant year on year since....tbh you're actually the "bloody joke" aren't you pal ?...

"billinghampoolie1908
Post subject: Re: Article from Northern echo- ken hodcroft the pools savio
Post Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 1:41 pm
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2015 4:52 pm

"Anybody who thinks ior have saved us needs sectioning. Years of under spending years of little or no communication. Picking the squad before managers arrive in the summer. Jobs being lost in the club lies being told about managers being there first choice a chief executive in two bodged takeovers. Having the nerve to justify charging fans 20-25 quid to watch utter rubbish. No plans on attracting the young fans of the town to watch the club regularly. Bulling their way through yet another transfer window. The club is a joke no credit should be given for saving us from tmh because anybody with half a brain could of sensed something was wrong when fans of teams who are up the shitter are telling you stay away from them. They have managed to drag it out unbelievably to two days after the transfer window system being closed. We have been treat like idiots. I'm afraid we wont be anymore."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP6U5LBqA9A

You keep sticking up for your mate while the club gets dragged deeper and deeper into the mire. Do you still believe the Scottish contingent are the best things since slice bread?

Take it you feel it was another great transfer period?
How long before you start attacking this manager? Bearing in mind his record is worse than Lee's.

You my friend are the biggest joke on here. How much does raj pay you for your nonsense.

Change a few names etc and it could be posted today. Is it the pro forma ‘Anger sheet’, a sort of ‘Moan for all Seasons’?

Like I've said poolie1 come back and say we're all wrong when we win a few games. Then you might not look so stupid.

billy.."You my friend.."

..don't even sound the right lingo to me like...are you uk based pal ?..and beiieve me i aint your friend btw..

No one knows if it’ll come good or collapse in a heap, but I bet certain critics would elbow there way Private Fraser style to the front if it did work out and say ….”I believed in them all along”….. and not even blush.

Yeah your right I can't imagine you having many friends the way you speak to people. Anyway get back to us when we win some league games hey? Hopefully half of the crowd hasn't been banned before that day.

billy...."Hopefully half of the crowd hasn't been banned before that day."

...hilarious....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFW6yUlgGdI

No one may know for certain--but people can opine based on the evidence they see.

and if things do collapse some will take great delight from it because being right seems berrer than seeing their team do well. bloody odd behaviour for me but does happen throught football.

I don't think any pools fan will delight in being right but if most fans can see where we were heading before a ball was even kicked surely, the chairman, CEO and Hartley must have had a fair idea too.

I’ve said before I’ll give him till October if there’s no upturn, action needed.
Before then I’ll get behind him, I’m not jumping in the lifeboat yet.

Hope you’ve ironed your frock, cause it’s woman and children first.

Nah the moaners were in before the ship even sailed, they got all the frocks….I’ve decided on a Paddington bear romper suit and try to convince them I’m ‘big boned’.

wait till late november and then decide if hartley is good enough to last the season out and make us safe. a new appointment in december will give em a month to see what they can do with the squad and look for replacements in january. there is never a guarentt that his replacement will be any better either looking at pools record over many years. could say the same for other clubs like pools where you can count good managers on one hand over the last 60 years and the bad ones, well you could write a long book on em if you can remember em that is.

Whilst not calling for Hartleys head if he did go wouldn’t Danny Wilson be a good shout, basically left before as he didn’t get on with Hodcroft, he wanted a written report on the game from the Saturday, Wilson mentioned it on Switch of Play podcast.

All of Pool’s managers had to submit a written report of the match for the Chairman under Hodcroft. Industry practice to Hodcroft I suppose, but I can see the point of it actually, I don’t suppose he was expecting the works of Shakespeare in post match analysis form.

Look a bit deeper, Its in a heap now.

Hartley is no novice, He,s been around the block many times.
He accepted the budget presented to him wheather it be high ,low or in the middle.

People can blame Raj all day long, The performances are not his fault BUT they are his responsiblity and his decision will be final

I have tried and tried looking for a way forward and just can,t see one which fills me with despair.
Has Hartley as already stated the buck stops with him, After saturday his second half tactics were really poor
After what i saw in the first half, And the Choice of Hastie up front was a disaster, Think the lad would go home
Tomorrow if he could i think, just didn,t look interestd even when the new lad set him up his attempt was woeful.

Hodcroft should just have read the in-depth analysis contained on this board.

If I was the Chairman of a football club I would try to be there every game but as Hodcroft was a Newcastle fan I doubt he was. I believe at one time there was a portrait of Shearer hanging in Reception.