well i,m giving em a fighting chance as i,m missing the game on purpose. less than 10 miles down the road for me but i have never seen pools win there live. when i go they lose. thinking seriously also going in the rink end for my next visit to the vic. sitting with fellow poolies just isn,t working. swindon fan for the day pretending to be sad when they lose.

It was a tough battle yesterday, they looked a decent side to be honest and they had some good chances in the first half which stolarcyk stood up to, he was MOM for me and is light years ahead of Killip. Pools did well yesterday without really playing much football, think our best spell of pressure was after the equaliser when we actually started to move the ball quicker. Dodds made a big difference in that happening as he likes to drive forward from the back and make something happen. I just wish to god we had a big solid dependable centre half like Guthrie to control the central area when players like Dodds move forward. We have some decent young defenders but they really need a leader in there. Murray like last week did ok and he's certainly no worse than Hartley or Dolan back there, he's juya very limited footballer who's slow and rash at times. Thought Sylla was the pick of the midfield again with Cooke and Kemp not offering much most the game. Ferguson and Sterry didn't have the greatest of games. Up front I thought Josh was a real handful all game and he gets absolutely nothing off refs, Jennings was impressive first half but tailed off which isn't surprising considering the effort he puts in. All in all a draw against a top 4 side would normally be ok but we can't keep letting games and victories slip away, draws aren't much use now. Probably need 4 wins from ten but with our inability to keep a clean sheet and score enough goals where are the wins coming from!.

thing with jennings is that he puts a shift in but has lost his goalscoring ability which is why we have him anyway now.

He plays more like an attacking midfielder or number 10 who likes to drop a bit deeper but as you say he's not a goalscorer. Probably our best option to play with Umerah

Sweeney did the post match interview with Tees good to see Askey getting him involved not like Hartley who by all accounts said he was surplus to requirements.

Strange that the only attacker that Askey had on the bench was Wes McDonald. As usual he didn't get on the pitch, even when Umerah and Jennings were both knackered. McDonald isn't a like-for-like substitute for either of them, in which case where was Hamilton? Or Grey?

Might be safe to assume the new manager doesn't rate Ndjoli or Clarke, which would be no surprise to fans based on their recent appearances. But not having a natural replacement on the bench for either of the two lads leading the line looks like a misjudgement.

I don’t think McDonald’s Pools career is over just yet. Sweeney mentioned that the recruitment wasn’t what Askey would have done, given the fact he does eventually want to move to a 4-3-3. McDonald will then have his chance you would think.

I think we might need more than 4 wins. Fully expecting a Crawley revival now. Rochdale gone… but who realistically can we pull in. Sweens made comment to players possibly not carrying out game plans very well too, which hardly fills you with confidence when we are gonna need to be bang at it for a full 90 in the next two games.

I don't think Crawley getting a good win home to another really bad side necessarily amounts to a revival. The trouble is they've got home games against hit-and-miss Donny and mostly miss Rochdale coming up