More to the point, Askey will keep Murray. Obviously, that makes him clueless in some people's eyes

Certain to go-Umerah, Sylla.
Could go-Cooke, Dodds.
Certain to stay unless paid to leave-Hastie, Ndjoli, Paterson.

He looks like a slightly different/fitter of a player who still isnt good enough.

Askey has to work with what he has but hes not stupid enough to go into next season with Pruti, Lacey and Murray as our only recognized centre back--I am sure about that!

And whose eyes would that be! Mine. Because there is definitely better out there.

I believe that this retained list is exactly what people expected. As for Sterry nobody can deny his ability at this level but he only started 23 league games spending more time on the treatment table than the pitch and we have a perfectly good replacement in Dodds.

Also worth bearing in mind is that our retained list at the end of last season included Bogle, Byrne, Ogle and Carver all under contract and none made it to the start of the season. So should have some hope of being able to move a few on - mainly Paterson, Hastie and Ndjoli as a priority. Lacey looked poor as well before his injury so should be moved on but I’d be less concerned if we kept Murray in the squad as he was the best of a bad bunch.

Can’t keep having huge turnover of players every year, so the likes of Murray, Crawford and Finney should be good enough to keep in the squad so we don’t need to fork out for new unknown players who could be worse.

Why should they ?.....Murray, Crawford and FInney have done nothing in their Pools careers to suggest they can be successful next year--obviously if we are stuck with them we have to try and make the best of it, but I would hope Askey and Pools are doing their best to ship them on if its possible

Crawford showed a lot of potential and was one of our better midfielders imo at the end of 21/22 season and he’s had his first bad injury keeping him out this season. Haven’t seen enough of Finney to really judge but he’s been good enough to play over 100 games at League One and Two level and never played lower than that in his career.

Murray is one that could be good enough to have in the squad but wouldn’t be fussed if he went back up to Scotland.

fair enough---
Crawford for me has been here a while and flattered to deceive---he looks decent on the ball when we are doing well, but is very weak and easily knocked off the ball--also doesnt score much--not really sure what he brings or where he would be used in a 4-3-3
I think it would benefit him and us to move on

Fair point on Finney--of the 3 he is the one I have the least strong opinion on as have seen the least of him

Must be just me that thought Lacey was far better than Murray earlier on in the season. Murray had the advantage of playing with a few better players when January came which made him look a bit better but I'm sure Lacey would have improved in those circumstances as well.

Finney is 25 but has just 111 league appearances to his name.
And he has only actually started 58 league games in his entire career.
Yes that's Fifty Eight.
So you have to ask yourself why that is?
This is not someone whose game time has been limited due to a big squad and being at a club much higher up the football pecking order.
Unfortunately I seriously doubt if we will get 20 games out of him next season.

https://www.footballcritic.com/oliver-f ... ats/108931

Lacy was doing ok when Murray wasn't alongside him, the returned Murray did far better than he did early season. If they could both play to their best they'd be good enough for NL, especially with a goalkeeper who is a good organiser and commands his goal area.

for me its one or the other in the side along side of someone else. lacey has played at this level for a good club so knows what its all about. murray did improve but he could not have got worse. the question to ask is was the improved murray good enough for the national league land of the giants.

[quote="thebigdog"]Rumours on Dodds already being touted for league clubs.

talking about players going to stockport i could see him going. was the stand out defender on the whole pitch last sunday for me. cannot see him passing next january,s transfer window if he continues as he is, but at least for once we,ll get some money for him.

Retained list from the OS, for me Sterry heart wasn’t in it, for game against Stockport he told Askey he was ill, maybe hoping not to get injured ?

https://www.hartlepoolunited.co.uk/news ... st-202223/

In a Nutshell Askeys got one hell of a job in front of him.

I thought maybe some players who were under contract would have been transfer listed to try and offload them, the likes of Hastie ?

if you are under contract for next season you are retained whether good or bad. the club has three options, make the best of them, try to ship em out or pay them up if they refuse to move. the latter is the best option if the club has money to burn but pools have not and will only reduce the money askey has on recruitment. we will see which one will happen. the worry is i doubt we,ll see many more 2 year contracts being thrown about after our fingers have been burnt last season. then its back to a season contract and good players leaving for sod all again. who would want to own pools or manage them.

please, please not another season with killip around. the only talk with him should be the cheapest taxi company to take him home.

Lacey was improving before he got injured - and chipped in with a couple of goals - but your memory is playing tricks when you say Murray wasn't alongside him. They played together in all of Lacey's league games apart from one very early in the season. They both looked terrible when the clown Hartley was manager -then again, who in the team didn't apart from Umerah? Askey has shown what a difference having a good manager with clear ideas about how he wants the team to play makes.

As of now, Pools have only got half a squad and it's odds-on that one or two more central defenders will be among the new arrivals. Murray and Lacey are a long way from being certain starters next season but bracketing them with the likes of Hastie, Paterson and Ndjoli is just daft. Pools are not going to sign 15-20 new players this summer.

Under the conditions of club up for sale the recruitment will be the bare minimum.
Add in the shite that will still see out there EFL contracts n JA will have to be a top notch magician.

The longer Sing stays the harder the rebuild will be.

Just hopeing our President can use his contacts to find a consortium to stop the fans having the piss continously ripped out of them.

The ST Sales will be a good guide of these dissolution times.

Good news alert.
Sunny beer garden weather from 1pm today.

sounds as if jennings has gone by the reading of a tweet he put out.

It,s a strange one Kevin, Why would sing flap about fans and selling up then expect fans to dig deep for STcks.
Does not make sense, In fact its madness or being short sighted at best.
Maybe he,s going to accept a serious offer. (in his mind)

And this is what he said.

Connor Jennings Wrote.
"The aim when I joined on deadline day was to help this great club stay in the football league… I can only apologise for that not happening.

I’ve loved every minute of my time here, the fans have been incredible, home and away!! Thank you for welcoming me!"

Singh has to makes Pools an attractive proposition meaning we need decent players bringing in and try and have a good start to the season and to attract a buyer.

that makes complete sense if he is looking for a decent buyer to move pools on a notch. If the club is at it lowest ebbthere is a better chance of someone coming in who has not the best interests of the club and fans at heart.

Agreed, Singhs asking price won’t be any lower no matter where we are in the league.

Murray and Lacey are too small for centre half's we know in this league we need a t least one big brute.

Some folk can read a negative into it, but the last sentence sounds like he’s staying….it’s football though and anything can happen.

I can’t understand why some the players who have been retained and haven’t had much game time including Hastie who has never played under Askey or even been on the bench haven’t been placed on the transfer ?

Don't think they have to announce those available for transfer. At the end of the day they're all for sale if the deal suits the club and I'm sure we've seen the last of a few of them.

Hastie and the rest will have been circulated to other clubs as available for transfer.The "transfer list" doesn't get announced in public these days. Probably would be considered as "bullying" by the PFA.

Askey has a huge job no doubt about it. Scary that were offering another contract to a keeper on one great game again, doesn't look good for the season ahead.

I can’t believe that one myself.

The only reason surely has to be money, came from Braintree, probobly not on the greatest of wages. Dolan is another one couldn't get into a bad team and now offered terms. Puzzling what goes on at this club sometimes.

If killip played like that every week great but even in his great performance he still basically dropped one in his net.

Exactly, and what the hell was Killip doing anyway trying to catch the ball in that situation under the crossbar, instead of palming it over the bar,or punching it away?
Great at showcasing and throwing himself about acrobatically, getting in the way of poor finishes, theatrically bawling at and blaming others every time he concedes, but that's about it.
Panics and makes poor decisions all the time, just cannot deal with crosses into the box, is permanently rooted to his line and is always liable to drop an absolute clanger.
Why was Stolarcyzk benched and why was he playing anyway?
But his face fits with some on the coaching staff so he is again offered yet another contract this time around.
Ridiculous.

With any keeper it’s good to have all round ability, no good being a brilliant shot stopper if you’re letting soft ones in by dropping a bollock….and don’t get me going on commanding your area.

I’m not Killip greatest fan but he was clearly fowled by a massive centre half who hit him after he got the ball.

ok but he did drop the thing in the first place. if he had pushed their centre half to get to the ball i doubt a penalty would have been awarded. if pools had scored that i would not have been happy if it was chalked off and would have felt we were lucky to get that penalty like they did.

shows that there aint that many good keepers around now with all the coaches they have in that position when we are talking of the likes of killip getting another contract. they were 2 a penny once where everyone had a good one and many top ones failed to get england caps and if they did were just a handful. probebly good ones are cleared out at acadamy levels because they are regarded as unfashionably small, and are left with many clumsy giants of men who regularly make mistakes but not to the level of our dear old flapper.

He couldn't get in the team toward the end of our NL promotion season for a reason, he's not good enough. Worse, in my opinion, is that he hasn't improved really in his time with us even though we have had full time goalkeeping coaches. Surely the coaches should be working mainly on a player's weaknesses and we should see improvement, otherwise what's the point of hiring the coach? There's plenty to work on with Killip - can't command his line let alone 6 yard box, decision making is horrendous, distribution likewise, organisation skills, claiming or clearing crosses, etc. No improvement in 4 years in any of those areas.

As I have stated I am not a Killip fan but playing devils advocate I would point out that he was injured at the end of our Nat League season and his replacement whilst being inexperienced certainly didn’t give confidence. As for what PTID wants if he could do all that he would be playing for England. As Accrington points out decent keepers were once ten a penny but at our level they are rare.

I've never been a Killip fan even when he saved Noble penalty at Braintree. However, I'm a believer in your keeper is as only as good as your defence. So this season and last season sums him up.

Killip was back on the bench before the end of the season and was a sub in the play off final so Challinor obviously had more confidence in James.
I'm not saying Killip should be excellent in every area, even average would be a hell of an improvement regarding most attributes. Maybe we've been spoilt by having the likes of Flinders, Carson, Loach, who maybe dropped a couple of howlers a season each instead of the 6 to 10 a season Killip does?
I dare say he'll still be with us next season simply because we can offer him the highest standard of football he's likely to get.

And why exactly do we have to keep giving Patrick Boyes another contract every year, simply to loan him out to part-time non league clubs.
Hes 20 years old now and given we had to bring in an emergency keeper when Killip was injured earlier in the season, he is still clearly nowhere near good enough or tall enough so what precisely is the point?

Or your defence is only as good as your keeper, Wonky keepers have a negative impact on defenders…he’s a wonky keeper whose had four years to get his game sorted, he hasn’t.

More or less the first change Askey made was replace Killiip, he won’t be first choice next season, he might even be sent out on loan. A decent keeper is the starting point in any team, Clough did that by signing Shilton.

Yes, this is also very true. Hopefully he'll be gone in the next few weeks/months. We could only hope.

Killip gone - confirmed this morning

Yes, Yes, Yes. as good as a new signing.