3 are against playoff hopefuls and the other is away to Rochdale ...

Genuinely squeaky arse time ahead--and serious questions should be answered from the players, manager and most of all chairman if we are in a 2nd successive relegation battle--all the spinning in the world wont hide from the fact we have been appalling mismanaged over the last 24 months

Cant see us getting anything at Gateshead and then we got Halifax at home on Friday. They have won their last four games and had a nice rest today. Might get a draw out of them if lucky.

Can’t be expecting us to be competing with the likes
Of Gateshead and Halifax with their massive gates and parachute payments.

We are just lucky to be funded to the level we are at , as we must be one of the smallest
Teams in the league

While I acknowledge your irony, the observable fact is that most of the time our team struggles in the National League. All teams have blips in form but in our case, the blips are the occasional wins which many of us think could be the start of something only to come crashing down. If we cant beat teams like Woking and Eastleigh after getting a goal start, we clearly dont deserve to be in the top half of the table.

Agree Ozzy

Lack of funding didn't cause the loss of 2 points yesterday, sitting back and trying to defend a lead did. And not for the first time.ethis season.
The squad is what it is and isn't likely to change until the summer, so somehow this manager and these players need to start playing for 90 minutes instead of an hour and then cruising or which has also happened too often waiting until we're behind before starting to play.

Were you David Hodgson in a previous life…..?

So many speak with authority on financial matters within the club based on figures they pluck from the sky.
A complete capitulation (which was so close to a big loss based on theirv good chances) on the pitch yesterday from a position of complete dominance can only be blamed on the manager and players, no way can the finger be pointed anywhere else.
Surely Raj didn't put Lacey at RB when Stephenson is a better fit for example. Did Raj tell them to sit back on a 1-0 lead, or was it the manager, captain, players as a whole?

Maybe the Eastleigh players got a rollicking at half time and forced Pools back ?

Maybe, but it happens so often it seems more a habit of our lot.

This nonsense again? Raj sets the manager a budget. If that budget will not allow the manager to buy players good enough to win enough games then that's out of the managers hands. I think a lot of people on here know full well (and state every week) that these players are not good enough. Whether they are earning wages befitting players who SHOULD be good enough.... dunno but it's anyone deluded enough to believe we are one of the divisions big spenders?

They did. They also changed formation and brought on a player (Boldewijn) who caused us a lot of problems on our left.

Unless a football match is completely one-sided there are always going to be spells when the opposition is on top. Pools looked fairly solid till the ref gifted Eastleigh a penalty to make it 1-1. That put their tails up and Pools had no response.

We didn't have a game changer to come off the bench and fell apart in the last 15 minutes. It's easy to see why KP brought Mancini on last week even though he knew he wasn't fully fit.

as long as we avoid the drop playing like we are could be better than having a team winning games but flattering to deceive. at least KP will now need to have a bigger clear out than if we finished say 10th in the league thinking we,ll do better next season with only a few additions and new contracts given for some with more failures than success at the back of them.

But if the manager brings in players he thinks are good enough but turn out not to be, or they are good enough but the manager can't get a tu e out of them then it's entirely the managers fault isn't it?

How many players did Hartley bring in on 2 tear deals? How many are still getting a game? How many are we paying despite they're not getting a game?
This summer could be a huge turning point as all of those 2 year deals will be up. We'll have a manager who is in place and knows what's required and should be able to move quickly in the transfer market. A full pre season with a new squad to prepare.
Raj needs to give the manager the means but it's down to KP and his recruitment and coaching staff to get the best out of whatever budget is made available.

That's a long way from Raj having nothing to do with how well (or otherwise) the club does on the pitch.

" Think this is a must win meself, And not just for the points! "

My "" before the southend game, Mostly ignored at the time.
Seems 1 or 2 have got their heads out of the sand now.
Do we really need 2 holding mids in front of Parkes and Waterfall, Its a negative approach imo, One i would have agreed with before the arrival of our new CB partnership.
To me Crawford hates playing their and much more effective further forward.
We have a couple of games in hand on some, Lets hope we don,t need them.

We just need to get safe then get some new players.

we have not 2 holding midfielders at the club with players like crawford much happier playing their natural game further forward. we seem to have gone more negative as a team where we never look really like scoring anymore. Is this going to be what is instore for us next season with new players where keeping a clean sheet seems more important than scoring goals and end up having the leagues least goals conceeded going hand in hand with the least goals scored.

We’re like the group of swimmers heading for the shore chased by four sharks.
Swim faster or get eaten

hope we can swim fast then as we certainly cannot run. what next move joe grey back to a holding midfielder because he has some energy and a bit more pace. nothing would shock me where pools are concerned.

But if your well funded like Chesterfield, they can sit back and defend, because they have quality defenders, players. We are just signing any old shite on loan in the main and it comes back to haunt us every single time. The tactics of the manager cant be blame free yesterday though no matter how well or badly he is backed, we all know we cant sit back so why has he allowed this to happen on several occasions now?

We have probobly played well in 2 and a half games since he took charge if he is not careful he will start looking like askey did, a complete mug.

The permanent signings of Parkes and Waterfall are hopefully a sign of better things to come. The loan players are hopefully stop gap to get us to the end of the season only and hopefully not a sign of the quality we'll be aiming for in the close season.
KP started with a much pacier and pressing style, but we've very much reverted to the old tried and tested but ultimately boring and unproductive tippy tappy and conceding 2/3s if the pitch to the opposition.

The thing is this loan ploy of ours has been a stop gap for 3 seasons, so its nothing new. Until we have a complete overhaul of how we do things we are just going to be changing managers twice a season.

Kidderminster have 4 out of 5 games against top teams or playoff contenders. Chesterfield away Barnet away Halifax home Altrincham home Eastleigh home.

And some cant swim

If we had a rich owner we could have afforded Jet Ski’s

Rich owner did the trick at Man Utd, Chelsea, York didn't it? Even Stockport and Chesterfield took a while to get the right formula.

If we play like we did Saturday we will get tortured off Gateshead. They have somehow gathered wind in their sales and all seem to be singing off the same Hymn sheet. No stand out player but just a collective of well drilled focused lads doing it right. Frustrating as hell to see a team like them doing better than us ! Once upon a time we used to send our dregs to them on loan - could well be the other way round soon !

KP for me at the weekend didnt get it right - but 2 draws and points on the board is better than nowt. Hes still getting some form of tune out of these misfits ! lets just hope they keep plodding away or we could be in serious trouble !

In the case of Man Utd and Chelsea it did do the trick. They are top class sides with top class players playing in top class stadiums. Just because they are competing with other similarly wealthy clubs takes nothing away from the fact that they are in the top echelon of the top echelon of English football because they are wealthy.

York.... have they really spent as much as rumoured? I don't think there is any evidence other than rumour.

Two years ago Stockport were just on the up. One year ago they went up and now the money is showing again.

All Chesterfield needed was to be rid of two wealthier sides in the division. It happened.

Lets face it, money talks in the vast majority of cases. Even when it doesn't..... it soon does and promotion sides can be decimated by better offers for players and managers who've put themselves firmly in the shop window.

Man Utd and Chelsea fans not happy though are they? Do you think they spent so much money just to be on the PL?
York paid a 6 figure sum for their main striker in the close season, and about 100k for their central defensive pairing? Their transfer fees are published so I'd say that's evidence rather than rumour. Wonder if they're satisfied that they're playing in the Nzl in a nice new shiny stadium?
Money talks often but it's not a guarantee, even City took a while to become dominant and went through numerous top class managers and players.

Chesterfield were v unlucky not to go up last year in the playoffs in fairness, they will do fairly well next season

Nobody says money buys success every time just the absolute vast majority of times. Getting a rich owner means good times are very very probably on the way.

I cannot think that Gateshead are better financed than Pools yet they are having a much better season than us. Clearly their management was better than ours when recruiting players within their budget, so it is down to KP to do at least as well when preparing for the 2024/25 NL season (hopefully!).

It really is embarrassing that a club of our standing cannot get involved in the playoffs, stuttering over the safety line like an old nag in a 7 furlong sprint.

Darlington have had an awful season yet I'd bet they finish with more points than us this season.

Perhaps they are.

Gateshead benefitted from an excellent manager with a clear philosophy he was brave enough to implement, I expect mk dons will go up next year if they don’t this.

Unfortunately they don’t grow on trees and are tough
To identify

True but he managed in our own back yard and we missed him. Same with the goal scorer Langstaff who we should have and could have signed.

A lot of fans expected Gateshead to plummet down the league,after losing Williams & a load of players,but they haven’t.
A great example proving you don’t have to have a lot of money to put a good team together.
Bromley,Solihull,Aldershot,Gateshead,Halifax,Alty,Rochdale,Dagenham, Fylde are all above us & I bet our budget is bigger than all of those.

No but you do need that rare as rocking horse shit manager who can do the biz with bugger all. To be fair I think we are still suffering from the Hartley affect but..... from the players we have signed I don't think we've ever had an outstanding budget under Raj and I would only have confidence in us having a bigger budget than a handful of clubs above us.

So players we've signed this season include:

Jameson, Dixon, Dolan, Wallace, Mancini, Waterfall - all from EFL clubs.

Parkes from Scottish PL.

Mani D and Mani O from fellow NL clubs. Halifax chair.an stated they couldn't compete with our offer for Mani D.

Most of the loanees from EFL clubs.

We still have high earners such as Hastie, Cooke, Lacey on the payroll. And quite a few out on loan Patterson, Ndjoli, Wreh, Pruti to name a few still on the payroll.

We will likely still be paying Askey and his assistant. Possibly still paying Lee and Curle and their assistants too.

All of this to me indicates we have a reasonable budget but it's been squandered.

lets hope the recruitmant guy can spot a player who can do a job for pools and improve on what will be gone. like some have said gateshead seem to be able to do it and that crawley side who are just outside the league 2 play offs spots are full of ex NL players including some from the NLS. think most poolies expected our signings to have been better than they were.

Hastie is out on loan too- at Hamilton. And Jameson isn't our player - he's on a season long loan from Harrogate. Doesn't alter the point you are making though. The only good news is a lot of those liabilities end in the summer. But that's cancelled out by the drop in EFL parachute payments

This is where Raj really has to help us out - need to substitute that parachute payment with at least half what we loose to stand a chance of going up next season ! Lets just hope the likes of Hastie - Paterson - Lacey - Dolan - Wreh - Pruti all free up a decent amount of wage to at least bring us in 2 very good League quality players and maybe a half decent loan from a prem club to top it off !

Our signings are fairly bog standard for the division. Nothing exceptional. We don't know what people are earning so its guesswork about Hastie and Cooke, although the Hastie thing is quite a strong rumour.

Waterfall and Parkes, well they were signed right about when we managed to ship a few out so whether they were signed with existing 'freed up' funding or a cash injection leveraged by KP, who knows. Good signings though.

I'm not sure whether our string of ex managers are still receiving money or not but it all depends on contract clauses I guess.

We should get enuf draws bfor game 46 to stay up.
Marvellous

Due to G/D looks like 51 pts is 5th bottom material.
Achieved on game 45 hopefully.

Double post

I haven’t been on here in a while and was wondering what to say after the thrashing from Gateshead the other night. However, I agree with you PTID in that we should revert to the type of play we exhibited against Barnet. I think KP
should revert to a high press, quick passing game with us not allowing the opposition to dictate. This means everyone working hard to close players down, breaking passages of play quickly and not allowing teams to exert their authority. It’s hard playing like that but in our position we really need to step on the gas and be proactive. Further, we need to keep the momentum going for the full game. Come on Super Kev, go for the jugular on Friday. You owe us a performance!

Double post