It’s pretty laughable that the program tries to paint this as one of the club's "stronger periods." If this is what strength looks like, then it’s no wonder we’ve struggled for so long. The performance today was riddled with errors, and frankly, it's embarrassing that anyone could find positives in such a mess.

Waterfall's sending off is a perfect example of what’s wrong. His actions were not just avoidable—they were reckless and stupid. A senior player making such amateur mistakes? He didn’t just cost us two points; he could very well have derailed any momentum we might have had. If he doesn’t shape up, he should be nowhere near the starting XI. Sass-Davies can’t be worse, and honestly, I’m relieved we have someone else to turn to.

Stephenson’s slow start is another glaring issue. How can anyone think taking 20 minutes to "get into the game" is acceptable? In a competitive match, those first 20 minutes could be the difference between winning and losing. We need players who are switched on from the get-go, not ones who need time to warm up. If he can’t sort that out, he’s going to be more of a liability than an asset.

Mancini, for all the talk about his pressing, seems more like a passenger in this system. Sure, he put in some effort, but effort isn’t enough. If he can’t stand out in a positive way, maybe he’s just not cut out for this role. We need players who can make an impact, not just run around and hope for the best.

As for the tactical approach, it’s good that we’re trying to attack with width and defend better in wide areas, but these minor improvements can’t overshadow the fact that the team is still woefully inconsistent. We’re talking about basic footballing principles here, and the fact that we’re still struggling with them is a damning indictment of where the club really is.

If this is what the club considers a strong period, it’s no wonder the fans have had to lower their expectations. There’s a lot that needs to change, and fast, if we’re to have any hope of achieving something meaningful this season.

Ambition is non existent and its rubbed off on fans. You well get ridiculed on here for wanting better.

I will repeat what I have already posted but when playing in a physical fashion, the one thing one must not do is collect soft yellows for gobbing to the ref. If Waterfall cannot accept that he should not be captain.

Waterfall needs fining. Shambles stuff, you’re the club captain. The second yellow was a farce.

Well my expectations haven't been lowered, I expect a better season than last and I think we'll get it.
If we'd have has our previous 2 seasons midfield on the pitch today we would have got absolutely battered. 2 big physical sides out there today and they pretty much cancelled each other out. A good point in the circumstances and a 2nd successive clean sheet. Now let's nick another 3 points off Tamworth.

I agree with you. My expectations of the division have though. Christ the level is bad!

"One of the clubs stronger periods"??

My word, I thought Putins propaganda was hard for people to swallow. Let's just settle for... we're still unbeaten!

enjoyed this, some folk must enjoy being shite! (And by the way, it doesn’t need to be like this!) we have been great in equal measure before.

porter and Boyd on a wind-up

Waterfall will be disappointed with himself but has enough history to suggest that he will come back and perform--1st booking 100% on him, 2nd he got cold short by either Hunter or Sheron with terrible call in midfield

Cant fault overall effort but the quality needs to improve

Defensively from previous seasons like chalk and cheese although they did miss an absoloute sitter. I must admit i expected more from today attacking wise. We must create more at tamworth

yes even 1st half we created v little it was all put it in areas and wait for mistakes--which will get us somewhere with the poorer sides if we do it continually, but we need to do a better job of creating with Grey, Campbell, Mancini etc...
Work in progress and the defensive side was excellent which is something Dixon (thankfully) didnt have a save to make

Whilst I agree Waterfall should have known better with the bookings especially the first one I thought he was outstanding in the first half. He won everything in the air and he was constantly shouting and organising the defence

yes he was good overall--Sarll was defending him post match which I hope is just public posturing though--he absolutely let himself down with the first booking

Crackpot. 2 games in unbeaten.

2 clean sheets.
Mainly by good fortune than classic defending.
A bit concerned about our goals for even tho it's early days.
Like I said when fixtures were released it was a brutal start.
So 4 points is OK.
Add in a dog shit mainly quality division.
It's now or never.
But we gambling big time with the small quantity.
Fully understand the mixed opinions like.
UTP.

Maybe Loyal but did anyone hear what he said to the referee He is captain and is allowed to question decisions. And BTW it was a Pools throw in and the officials got it wrong so a simple word with a player who is captain and in his rights to feel cheated would have gone a long way and eventually stop the sending off. If on the other hand he called the referee a cheating twat or something along those lines it should be a straight red.

I was in-line with the second booking and no problem with the booking itself but he had to stop the player by tugging a little on his shirt otherwise the lad was clean through. It's called clever defending and taking one for the team.

he was waving his arms about like a 15 year old--yes its easier said than done to manage your frustration but it was a stupid booking for an 18 year old never mind a 34 year old club captain
He has enough credit in the bank to not be criticism too much but i dont get this pretending its something other than it is lark

I only asked what he had said to the referee etc I honestly did not see him over reacting but I had turned my head away to discus the throw in with my son because that decision was staggering. So if that's what he did he should know better but do you still think it was worthy of a booking or would a word have been sufficient

Well, much as I hate to agree with people who have crawled out of the woodwork to gloat (not you Billy) I thought today was pretty underwhelming for a first home game of the season under new management.

Apart from Campbell's corker of a free kick, Pools hardly showed as an attacking force. Overall, the football was reminiscent of some poor games at the back end of last season - except that we had a lot less possession! Most of the time it looked like our only tactic was hoofing the ball up to Mani and hoping for some second ball near their goal.

Any chance of a win went when Waterfall was sent off. The lads deserve a lot of credit for battling it out to the end, especially Parkes, Ferguson and the very versatile Mr. Hunter. Southend helped by being bang average themselves, but had 3 clear chances to win it. At roughly this time last season we were down to 10 men against the Heed but nicked it at the death with a great break - that never looked on the cards today.

I'm sure we can do better in games going forward and Sarll was forced into making changes he didn't want to make by the injury to Charman and the Waterfall sending off. But cards on the table - today was poor.

Nobody is coming out of the woodwork. Today was a terrible game of association football and Pools were party to that. Nothing more, nothing less.

This IS our tactic, play the %s and hope Campbell,. Grey, Mani etc get the ball in a dangerous area and can do damage--if you don't like the sound of that you are in for a long season---personally IF it translates to wins I'm not too bothered but hope we refine it somewhat once the season beds down to use our better players more creatively

Completely agree. They are professionals and anyone getting soft yellows should be fined. We will pick up more than our fair share of yellows from missed tackles so keeping quiet should be mandatory. When did gobbing to the ref change a decision in ones favour? Answer: never!

PS it is a case of risk/reward. Risk a yellow v what, a throw in?

I think if that was under askey critiscism would of been raining down. No getting away from it that was a pretty awful game, infact if we are being honest the first two games have been pretty awful to watch. Its great and you can get away with it when you pick up points but i think fans will soon turn if results are poor playing this way. Mancini is wasted playing like we are, might as well have someone else in his place.

Our aim though is to win the league or get in the play offs and if we do that boring everyone to death then so be it.

I said before the game that I can never trust Southend to do what I think they will, but we came away with a point so what do I know? Your sending off certainly changed the balance of the game, but with you down to 10 men we decided that we couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo when we had enough chances to bury you by the end of the 90+ minutes!

All that aside, I reckon both sides must, and will, majorly improve on today's showing, but we are both unbeaten after two games, so it's not too bad. Good luck for the rest of the season and we'll see what we both have to offer when you visit the Hall.

Glad supporters can still visit the Hall!

Nearly as many clean sheets as last season mani D didn't look happy today though was the downside to a earned point

I noticed that Knee but I took it as he was getting the shit kicked out of him and the referee did sod all about it. How many times did he have a centre half in front and one behind holding his shirt over and over again. Referees hate us since that bullshit incident about racisim.

I thought it was a decent point all considering. The officials were absolutely terrible, how waterfall managed to get sent off is ludicrous, I don't care how people want to say he should know better... Blah blah...poor refereeing all day long. Louis Stephenson booking was farcical too, it wasn't even a foul, and don't get me started on the linesman...Grey ruled offside when he was thirty metres onside, the officials were an utter joke.
Considering all that I thought it was a tremendous team effort to get a clean sheet and a point.

Yeah, he didn't but I think that might have been to do with him having to fight a lone battle up front after waterfall was sent off. Must have been difficult for him, but we had to keep our shape and sacrifice any attacking intentions.

I like waterfall but he can have no complaints about being sent off today

With a character like Waterfall you have to accept that this will happen, but Imlike that sort of commitment and attitude, it encourages others to show some real battling qualities and emotion.
Criticism from those with a Sunday afternoon tea with the vicar mentality is irrelevant, it’s about winning and some people will just have to accept it, so strap in and prepare for a rough ride.
Lovely stuff, that there John Gill attitude.

plenty of negatives on here considering we,d have lost that game by a good margin last season. Firstly waterfalls first caution. He is the captain and is the one player allowed to speak to the ref. Normally captains get some leeway with refs as i,m sure some shithouse team we,ll see will have there,s in the ear of the ref permanently. If it had been really bad case of abuse or bad lnguage then the decision would have been to send him off. nobody can criticise the lack of effort from the side but things just didn,t come off as an attacking unit. if manny headed the ball one way our players would have been on the other side but we showed enough that on another day moves would have come off. charmans injury did not help with a bench full of defenders. ok it was a forgettable 90 odd minutes where the awful performances of the officials were the ones that eventually woke a lot of the crowd up. what do you expect from a man deemed not good enough for the efl to become a top ref at our level. if you are poor you are poor and it was a game he could have strolled through if he had wanted. th last two performances hopefully from a watching point of view is not the benchmark for the rest of the season by just keeping a clean sheet with the hope of nicking a winner and all we can talk about are the players who put a real shift in.

Sarll has transformed us defensively in just 3 months.

The signings he has made have been effective.

The football we play won't result in 4-0s and 5-0s unless the opposition is stupid (see Sutton vs Altrincham highlights).

It's important we as fans are patient. I liked the fact alot of fans stayed behind to applaud the players and management team as the effort was 10/10.

Sarll needs time to improve our attacking play which at times is limited. He's clearly looking at improving the attack with the likes of Madine.

If Sarll signs just anyone simply to fill the squad, it may fall apart as you can't have weak links in the type of system we play.

This division is poor, so even with limited time we can expect top 7 and nothing in those two games suggest we cant achieve that. But we need to keep working hard and keep supporting the players and management team.

Didn’t the ref hold some sort of record last season for the number of yellow cards he dished out?

We actually beat gateshead in similar circumstances early last season, so im not sure why . everyone keeps saying we would of lost this game last season. Still plenty of positives to take bit of fight in the team, looked fairly orgnised, mind you they did miss 4 very close chances in a shortish period of time i guess, unbeaten. But like you the football is going to have to improve somewhat.

if true then unless he has been given really difficult games he should be looking at his own performance especially after yesterdays game.

So was the first, Well according to the ref.

Waterfall had cover for the second, Needless.

I believe we will settle in to play as much football as we can, However the WIN is the most important thing and stopping the oppo.
Remember that these players are still gelling. Sloggett is still to play and i am expecting big things from him.
And Hunter slipped in to CB seamlessly, Which was pleasing, And Snarll did not panic with the sending off and took his time to evaluate.
We as poolies have ALWAYS craved effort/commitment and yesterday these players passed with flying colours.

He was lucky he wasn't carded a few minutes earlier when he dragged the winger back on the touchline. Absolutely brainless giving the ref a chance of a sending off when he was on a yellow already. First booking was a bit soft really the throw in was quite blatantly ours so I can see him being annoyed and as captain maybe the ref could've had a word rather than the card. Ref overturned the linesman for another blatant one later on too and wasn't consistent at all for dissent. But Waterfall has no excuses.

Hunter is looking like a brilliant signing.

Ploughing through these whining posts was like going through the North Sea in January in a Northerly gale…and gearing the cabin boy giving his two penneth on HMS Big Girl’s Blouse.
A wretched, god foresaken experience of unending grey abject misery with self flagellating masochists forecasting the end of the world and getting a strange thrill from the the thought of impending oblivion, just to say the trip was doomed from the start.
In other words if you want perfection you signed up for the wrong ship, so accept reality or take up knitting….you just aren’t up to the rigour of supporting Pools

that was certainly a positive along with sarll getting it totally spot on with his substitutions giving how the game was going. biggest downside was having to leave after the clock hit the 90 mark to avoid a parking fine from morrisons agent as my time was nearly up.

best thing to do is to be drowned at birth if anyone cannot stand anything but perfection.

We must be very old school Accy.

i resemble that remark.

I was one of those who stayed behind to applaud and I AM patient. That isn't going to stop me from giving an honest opinion that it was a poor game to watch and Pools were alarmingly short of attacking ideas. The team has got players who are very good technically (Mani, Campbell, Mancini, Featherstone, Charman) and Sarll needs to develop our play so that we attack through the opposition as well as knocking the ball over their heads. Compared with some of the pre-season games even our press was a bit off yesterday - what was that about?

Of course we can do better and I expect a win on Tuesday night. But save the little homilies till Pools have chalked up some decent home performances and we can write off yesterday's dearth of exciting football as a blip.

I also waited after the game and applauded mainly for the effort and fight. But anyone who says that wasnt awful are pretty much lying to themselves.

Anyone know the attendance?