Glad to see Raj has got him signed up through to the end of the 23/4 season. Hopefully its a sign of progress during the transfer window. Onwards and upwards
https://www.hartlepoolunited.co.uk/news ... -new-deal/

Great news.

Good decision.

I likes him, A lot deeper than he makes out, Hopefully hes got into Hasties head.

An outbreak of common sense at last.

All of the Above, NICE
Hopefully we can move forward now, UTP

Results will define if its a good decision.
Positive Results will only happen if the next 2 transfer windows are a major upgrade from the last 3.
Staying up n Promotion next season then.

UTP.

Splendid piece of timing with Challinor visiting the Vic today.

Staying up and competing at the right end of table next season will do me.

In his pre-match interview on the OS Keith Curle indicated that he's clearing the decks to revamp the squad in January. He's asked Sunderland to take Ellis Taylor back early and told Hastie if he didn't buck up his ideas he could go. Hastie got the message and has shown a completely different attitude in recent weeks. It's odds on that he'll have had similar conversations with several others.

He was at the Darlo match last night. Running the rule over Dodds and Lambert apparently. Also interested in Beck who missed the game as he’s injured.
Dodds I can see joining you in January on loan but whether Lambert is the sort of player you need I doubt, he’s an infuriating winger who can be brilliant one minute and awful the next as well as being lazy on occasions!

Thanks for that Mr Star. No more lazy buggers, please. We've got a squad full of em ! X

What Lambert is capable of, but the previous 43 minutes he did nothing and lost his man for the Hereford goal.

https://twitter.com/official_darlo/stat ... vGIiuCMsNA

Was surprised to see Beck drop to NLN to be honest, he always gave us a hard time playing for Harrogate and is a decent physical target man. He's probably better than any of our options up front apart from Umerah. Saying that we need a host of proven L2 players to get out of this mess.

No disrespect to the above players. But i can't see targeting step 6 players the solution to preserving our EFL status.
Tishbola Hugill standard loanies may be a better option.

Not seen Beck play at a higher level but he’s too good for this one. Mind you if he was good enough for league football then why did Harrogate let him go and why did no other team at league 2 / national league level try and snap him up?
Lambert was released by Scunny a couple of years ago and ended up at Hebburn before getting a chance with us again. On his day he’s brilliant but like most players down here there’s a reason why they are here. Needs to up his work rate off the ball.
Dodds is easily a league player, we only got him as he broke his nose I think just before the window shut so any league loan was ruled out. Whether he would see signing for a club in bother as a good move though is another thing. He seems to be enjoying it here but I guess Boro hold the key to that one.

I would agree on all but Dodds.

To be fair it was NL when Beck gave us a hard time

The inks just dried on KCs 18 month contract.
But i can see the 6 months cya later probation period period coming in to play again.

you mean like 3 of yesterdays stockport starters were yesterday plus one who could not get much game time for relegated scunthorpe.

you mean like 3 of yesterdays stockport starters were yesterday plus one who could not get much game time for relegated scunthorpe.

ok, he is a bit of a luxury player and we have some who do nothing for a full game apart from losing their man for a goal. if you have the rest of the team working hard you can manage with one who doesn,t. 11 hard workers will not keep us up but a difference of losing my the odd goal apart from a few more. a loss is still a loss.

I am amazed at the Curle support! I first knew about this about 2 minutes before kick off yesterday when the people near me were talking about it. It is remarkable that in the week Challinor said he had asked for a 3 year deal and would move his family, that Singh was only prepared to offer him a 1 year deal, as sacking him would cost too much. Even if he had gone to Stockport after that the compensation would have been good. So a manager with a great record for us and filling the stadium is only worth a 1 year deal yet Curle gets 18 months!

Now no offence to Curle, the poor signings in the summer are not his fault. So he has a limited squad, who have all mysteriously become injured at the same time. Shelton, Sterry, Niang have seemingly gone missing with minor injuries. Curle says he doesn't like talking about injuries so fair anough they may be more severely injured than it looks but who knows.

How anyone who changes formations 4 or 5 times in every game, well up to Harrogate anyway, who plays players randomly different positions in any game, (I am thinking Tumilty ostly here), how can he get a better deal than a manger who clearly knew how to motivate players.

Where I stand, the thought was the Everton nightmare was the end of him, but he survived to the Saturday to see Salford easily win, nothing happens. Grimsby take the lead and amazingly we manage to scramble a win with 2 late goas as everyone was thrown forward and 2 wonder crosses from Ferguson. Then the Solihull fiasco, when bar a string of great saves from Killip and an inspired effort from Tumilty we would have been thrashed. We are well beaten by Barrow. After all of this why would you give the guy a permanent deal?

So Harrogate, an excellent display, suddenly Cooke looks like a player who was worth signing as we play him through the middle and he starts to run at the defence and pass well. Hastie returns to his form in the first couple of games of the season. Now, I can't put that down to Curle, it came just after Lawrence had joined the club and that was the only difference I can explain it by. Yesterday we were tactically humiliated and the formation never really changed, we are virtually motionless compared to the ever moving Stockport team. Bar a great pass from Cooke to Hastie and the poor finish we were outclassed.

My Christmas was wrecked when I heard Curle had the job full time!!

On a byeline, I am not having a go at Tumilty, he is no defender and God knows why we play him at Right Back, yes we are short on players but he can't do it. However the effort he puts in getting forward and the crosses he puts in are excellent. But if you play him right wing then you have to move Hastie, our only hope of defending is 3 Central defenders and then we can get away with Tumilty at Right Back. The shouting from Menayesse when he wanted him back to pass too yesterday was an indication. Great credit to him for coming to applaud the fans yesterday after all the other cowards ran off.

Great information. I have never seen Dodds play but as a youngster can surely solve our Right Back issue if Sterry doesn't return.

I have seen Beck many times over the years from his first spell with you and he doesn't look up to this level, Harrogate gave up on him last year and I would say he is not much better than Carver who was out of his depth at this level.

I expect the Darlo derbies will be back next season, good luck.

Fair comment but I still think we need to give KC a decent crack of the whip, if for no other reason than there is no alternative. Even if a new manager was brought in, the abysmal quality of the squad would still prevent any significant progress. Also, any new guy would have to "get to know" the players etc and the transfer window would hit before he had a working understanding of the size of the task. KC is no Challinor but he is all we have and I think we need to get behind him. Poor old Tumilty always does his best but he is not FL standard. If Sterry ever regains fitness Tumilty will be warming the bench. If Tumilty was the only problem, our FL league survival would not be an issue but as we all know very few of the current squad are of FL standard. Few would argue that the current lot are the worst to represent Pools in living memory (bar the first season in the NL). KC has an almost impossible task and if he keeps us in the League it will rival the achievement of Len Ashurst and the great Ronnie Moore. I fully admit, itis hard to be optimistic.

In reality terms its a 6 month contract to end of May with a 12 month extension if KC keeos us up.
Nailed on the probation period which got rid of Lee will come into operation.

In answer to Smallwood. There is no way Challoner would have stopped even if we had offered him 3yrs. Stockport was too big of a draw and obviously with a sugar daddy owner with money no object, and to live in his own area, he was always going to go. Yes we may have got more compensation than we did get but it wouldn’t be mega money.

Tumilty was brought in as competition for the right back spot, from what I can gather he is a right back and played that position in Scotland, in reality he's just a poor right back. On the left side id even say Ferguson is a poor full back, gets caught out of position a lot and looks a bit lost. Both look better going forward so wing back is probably their best position. Hartley brought players like Tumilty, Murray, Paterson, Hamilton, Nieng down from Scotland thinking they could do a job at L2 level but I think he completely underestimated what it takes at this level and it really shows!.

As for Curle getting a deal, I'm sure there is a clause in it if we go down but for now he is working with a squad of players who he probably doesn't want and it's hard to really judge a manger until they've been allowed to bring in their own. I can't guarantee we wouldn't be in this position had Curle been given the job in summer but we certainly wouldn't have this current team of no hopers. He is a good guy and deserves a crack at it with his own players and then see how we get on. It's a massive challenge for him with such big changes needed but I really hope he can turn it round. As for chopping and changing a lot he probably doesn't have the personnel to play the way he wants so keeps trying different things. With such a poor squad and with so many injuries I genuinely don't think anyone out there would do much better. If nothing changes after the transfer window and towards the end of season I'm sure he will be given his marching orders like so many before him.

Is it safe to assume when he got home for his "hot chocolate" last night, he didn't get a rousing chorus of their 1977 smash " So you win again " ?

not too sure about that. even with raj i think his future at pools would be more secure than with them. the previous manager was one game off the bristol final and started next season no worse than he did this time. another bad run might see him looking for a job next season .

Raj with egg on his face yet again, Never learns does he.

Curle reported watching White at Newcastle and Dodds at Darlington. Two youngsters are they what we need in our position? When Cyril Knowles came in he signed Bennyworth, Olson,Tupling and McDonald all strong experienced lower league players the type I hope we bring in.

Agreed. We need seasoned pros not promising youngsters if we are to get out of this mess. Surely it is not impossible to sign the type of players who can get us to finish third bottom. Is that too much to ask?

Have to agree, kids are definitely not the answer, need L2 ready made players in. We need leaders in defence and in midfield and we need more pace and tenacity all over! Definitely need another keeper as well.

Promising youngsters are just that, promising youngsters. At this level, the promising youngster is well out of their depth and apart from the odd party trick is out of their comfort zone too.
Give me a knuckle dragging pro who can do a job for us every time.

yes and the type who would not accept nonesence from his own side on the pitch. please no skinny kids in january who may or maynot be ones for the future. its the present that matters.

Has Gary Strodder got any kids/grandkids ?

Jack Baldwin was 18 when he joined Pools from non-league and went straight into the first team. Tyler Burey was 20 when he came to Pools last season. He's a regular starter for Millwall now.

If they're good enough, they're old enough. We've signed more than our fair share of knackered old pros in the recent past as well as 'skinny kids.'

It’s ok in a normal season, you can risk youngsters and that’s not a bad idea, but……we’re going to be on a dogfight till the end of the season and putting that sort pressure on youngsters ain’t fair…… it ain’t gonna be pretty and you know we ain’t gonna sign the players who can play us out of trouble, you can bet your house on it.

Yep, spot on Mr Snowy. We are in a dog fight and we need the right type of dog to get us out of trouble. Balwin was an exceptional player for our level. We don't stumble upon lads like him very often. I would like to think KC knows the difference between a seasoned campaigner and a knackered old pro. We are soon to find out one way or another.

As the saying goes Mr Ozzy, …’It’s not the dog in the fight, it’s the fight in the dog’.

True. We soon discovered there was very little fight left in Theo Robinson.

Maybe if we offered the players a monetary bonus if we avoid relegation it might put some fight in the players.

Raj should reimburse the fans who put promotion bets on.
As for the players he aint gunna reward 3rd bottom.

NO,NO, NO! If they can suddenly become battlers after a pay rise that would be a disgrace.
They signed a contract willingly and in return they have the responsibility to perform at 100% of their ability…… in fact from some players they have no ability or commitment , but if they could perform better for a ‘fee’, they’d have been taking the club and more importantly the fans, for a ride.

Thing is i actually think the players are giving 100%.
It sometimes comes across that they aren't simply because of the fact the majority are out of there depth playing this High up the Football Pyramid.
Let's not forget were they come from.
I could go to the Rec n Grayfields and pick a better starting 11.
When our keeper n Centre Forward who aint nothing special are man of match most weeks tells u the reason why we are were we are
Miracle required.
Saving grace looks like the lowest points total of about 40 will be enough.

lets not forget that pools are not on their own. others have their own problems and will also be looking to january also. which club does the best in january signings by getting the right men will be the one that will succeed. KC also needs to find out if any of our present players are up for the fight and see their futures at the club. anyone who isn,t should be transfer listed no matter who they are and what they might have done in the past.

I don’t think they are giving 100% unless it’s 100% of sod all.
I think a fair percentage are just going through the motions and want away asap, but on the strength of their performances for us it must be in the ‘Willy Broon’s Haggis Amateur Football and Curling League’ on Rockall.

Agree that lack of effort isn't usually an issue, though most the fight had gone out of the team by the back end of the game on Saturday. Same goes for the fans - I'd seen enough after the 4th goal went in.

Agree too that a lot are out of their depth in League 2. Pools will be fine if Curle can find another 10 who are as "nothing special" at their job as Umerah - but he won't find them at the Rec or Grayfields. If any of those lads could earn even part of a living playing football they'd already be doing it!

who will actually take these players off our hands though which is the problem. bottom of league 2 and if saturday is anything to go by quite happy to be there if that was the effort they showed. not surprised stockport didn,t pick up any injuries on saturday as they,d been in a bigger danger walking round a care home.

I believe Curle knows which players are just not good enough and has said so many times. What’s the point of putting them on transfer list nobody will want them. Just tell them they are free to go and hope they get fixed up in the Scottish Highland league, because they’ll not leave without at least a pay off.