After the Grimsby match I was over the moon. That bunch of misfits had finally clicked and playing to their potential and I now gormlessly believed we were gonna make it, then, the ‘team’ (I use the word in it’s loosest sense) for some reason reverted to their old piss poor standards and held their hands up and surrendered any credibility they had.
Why…? God knows…and even he’d struggle to work it out.
We can blame everybody but in the end it’s down to the team and they bottled it, for what reason I do not begin to know.
If I had the money I’d buy the club, keep Askey and give him the money to build a completely new team….pay most of the rest off and exorcise the fecking ground.
p.s. I’d also renew all next years season tickets for free.

do not know what the deadwood are being paid but surely as much as the average NL player is on at least. for everyone paid up fully can mean one less player in and can this be afforded to move the club forward. did the players actually bottled it or they wanted it more as i doubt the performance was any worse than many under curle or hartley. you will never turn a lap dog into a terrier.

Just wondering if the reason for the decline in form is that word has gone around about how to stop Hartlepool playing (Askey's version). Just make sure certain players are bullied and take counter measures for when McDonald shows up and hey presto!. Just a thought. I know there will be folks on here who know a lot more about the technical side of the game who will be able to give this idea some thought and declare my theory bullshit or maybe a possibility.

Understand what your saying, But in order to stop you playing you have to first start.

NO something happened after the Stevenage game, Convinced of that 100%.

We were playing reasonably and with better Defending/Finishing/Reffing we would have pulled
Clear of the pack.

The sudden change after the Grimsby game was so dramatic that it has to be something really serious, especially from the player's perspective so what galvanises players. The answer is decent contracts and money in my opinion.
Looking for a money related reason, the only thing I can come up with is perhaps a bonus for staying up was muted or discussed and the outcome of negotiations on that front aggravated the players. Of course any club could probably argue that they got us into this mess so it was incumbent upon them to get us out of it.
That is the only suggestion I can think of.
I know that it is adding two and two together and getting six but what other drama could possibly unfold to cause such a turnaround. Beats me.
But in any dispute money is usually in there somewhere.
Or it is simply that the players ran out of steam and/or just weren't good enough.
Dan Kemp went from a revelation to a virtual passenger overnight. I think we are entitled to ask why. Eddie Kyle was exasperated as the rest of us on that score.

Kemp had poor games amongst the good ones as well. Another vreal irratic player and you could see why MK loaned him out. You need a 7 out of 10 performer week in week out not a 9 for a couple of games that then drops to a 4 or a 5.

I mentioned on another thread that I wondered if the players had been fully paid come the end of March into April. This had then caused the reaction of "couldn't care less"
The Grimsby game was the 7th April and since then we have gone into a new financial year, has this had an effect on the Club's finances?

I really don't know why players should expect a bonus for not being relegated.
Professional pride should be enough.

They’re supposed to be professionals, did the supporters lose interest when they were playing shite week in week out, no the fans kept supporting them.
So might I suggest they make an effort, even though it’s too late now.

Adding to the speculation - Askey did say that there were individuals at the club who also needed to look at themselves re the reason we had come up short on survival. Very Challinor-esque when he delivered his parting warnings. There’s a social media post doing rounds on Twitter of an un-named player (allegedly Timi) saying he would have loved to say but ownership would continue drive people away, citing it as a ‘shambles’.

As fans we feel let down and lied to (to different measure across everybody), question is do the players about something that might have happened. Or were they simply not fit to wear the shirt? Not good enough? Askey said he had slim pickings of players available to him to pick from? Errrr there is 30 odd in the squad, what is he referring to here?

Every coach worth their salt will have had plans A, B and C for any tactical setup they came across so don’t buy into anything about clubs working us out. The body language at Salford was as bad as I’ve seen from a Poolie team.

Knowing Singh, he'll probably give them a bigger bonus for Relegation. Maybe Raj wants us down in the National League, as they's no transfer window, he can wheel and deal throughout the season with players and pocket the parachute payments. Also he doesn't have to spend much on salaries next season. Question is, does he get rid of the youth set up like last time or keeps it going?

Also complete radio silence from all at Pools since Saturday. I notice Rochdale rolled their chairman out quick time post-relegation.

Maybe they’re working on the old saying ‘no news is good news’, somebody should correct them, no news is ‘what are you hiding’ in my books.

Wudent rule out non payment of wages.
Carry on with barmaid not a good sign.
Future looks very bleak.

HUFC now seems to be an employment agency for Desperadoes who cant find employment at other football clubs.
The main employees being the Players as 8 wins all season suggests.

Clubs working us out are you having a laugh! A 3 year old could work out what they had to do to beat Pools. It’s not difficult, play on the front foot, get as many men in the box as we don’t man mark. shoot as much as possible from out side the box as our goalies positioning is suspect. Attack down the right as the midfielder is not quick enough. Have a midfield as we don’t, play through our midfield. Piece of piss when we only have one player. Stay tight with our strikers. Quite easy when they are not getting the ball to their feet. And finally nullify aimless punts. Again no pressure as most of our players seem hurried or nervous. Only the league 2 players show calmness on the ball for any length of time. Now that’s pissed everyone off I don’t care. I have watched enough games to come to this conclusion. Not blaming the manager though he has performed miracles with this dross.

And as regards a 30 man squad to choose from don’t think so. League 2 standard umerah, kemp, Dodds, Sterry, Sylla . Conference hastie, finny, Cooke, Ferguson, Crawford, the goalies, jennings
Northern league the rest
This will piss everyone off. Most people on here need a reality check I don’t care. Yes it’s Singhs fault but you can’t expect the majority of this squad to compete against league 2. I have watched enough games. The quality is not just there!

its a case of just doing the job you are paid to do to the best of their ability.

[quote="harrogatepoolie"][

Clubs working us out are you having a laugh! A 3 year old could work out what they had to do to beat Pools. It’s not difficult, play on the front foot, get as many men in the box as we don’t man mark. shoot as much as possible from out side the box as our goalies positioning is suspect. Attack down the right as the midfielder is not quick enough. Have a midfield as we don’t, play through our midfield. Piece of piss when we only have one player. Stay tight with our strikers. Quite easy when they are not getting the ball to their feet. And finally nullify aimless punts. Again no pressure as most of our players seem hurried or nervous. Only the league 2 players show calmness on the ball for any length of time. Now that’s pissed everyone off I don’t care. I have watched enough games to come to this conclusion.
nearly every goal conceeded has been a carbon copy of others that have gone in. we have not been unlucky letting in goals of the season week in week out.

Calm down. My "other clubs working us out" idea was just a theory to come up with a solution as to why Pools suddenly went from 8 game unbeaten to losing three on the bounce. Other posters were pondering why the heck should this suddenly happen. I was simply making a suggestion. At least it gave you something to rant about and no doubt you feel better now you've got it off your chest. Correct me if i am wrong but reading between the lines, your impression of Pools is that the eight games unbeaten was pure luck and really they should have lost them all.

the reality really was the last 11 games was a quarter of the season and there will be other clubs with a similar record in a quarter of there season somewhere. If all these results had been mixed up more the last three games would have not looked as bad. its just the defeats coming at the wrong time and expectations being too high with the 2 away games prior to crawley. even the crawley defeat had it been back in september would not have felt or looked as it disasterous then had it was last saturday.

Come back to me after the Barrow game and tell me if there isn’t a similar pattern.

The majority of this squad don’t learn from there errors because they are simply not good enough. I can only write what I see

I would love more than anyone on here to see Pools beat Barrow and Stockport and Crawley lose the rest of their games but it ain’t going to happen. The run was reasonable I admit that. Let’s see what the players are made off against Barrow .

If Pools lose on Saturday as they surely will, it wont prove anything one way or another. The loss could be taken as proof of your theory which by the way I am not disputing, or it could be taken as proof that the opposition have worked Pools out which by the way was merely s vague idea and not meant to be taken as seriously as you have done.

Of course, I would never deny it. Given you have seen all the games, why do you think that from Newport onwards Pools have been so bad after the eight game run which included some pretty tough fixture, Bradford away, for example. Pools must have been doing something right that they have stopped doing, it cant just be a coincidence can it?

I have already explained my theory Ozzy. It’s only my opinion it’s not the truth. None of us will know the truth. We/I are not experts and experts don’t know the truth. Even the manager didn’t know. Look I would love to see Pools
Play on the front foot on Saturday, defend like trojans, play the ball on the floor, take a few seconds to reflect rather than just hoofing the ball up. Like I said I only report what I have seen. I haven’t seen all of the games. But have seen the last 30. The good thing about the Barrow match is that I expect nothing but a win for Barrow. But would love it if I am wrong and get a torrent of abuse from you lot. Reverse psychology!

Oddly these bad results coincide with the absence of the ugly duckling a.k.a Murray who prior to this had been putting himself about and blocking and throwing himself into the melee….just a thought

I actually quite liked Murray but didn’t see him at the beginning of the season

will be interesting to see the team selection for these last 2 games. will JA make a lot of changes and only play the loan players if necessary and give games to those still on contract next season.

Valid point.

A tough one isnt it? If he plays a lot of fringe players and Pools inevitably lose but so do Crawley, we'll have people saying he should have played his best team on the million to one chance of staying up. I dunno, it all feels a bit hollow now.

It all feels a bit pointless now, but that twinge of keep going just in case, won’t go away.