The Poolie Bunker

I seem to remember the same conversations 3 seasons back, you can’t judge but you can make an educated guess based on where the players are coming from, hopefully people learned that from the Hartley pre season of nothing else…

surely Paul Stephenson is a bit long in the tooth these days?

Lacing?? Surely you mean velcroing...if that's a word.

Slip Ons
With a L n R on them.

Must have another season in him still

Players incoming,
https://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/sport/ ... rs-5192609

So far …none

Might seem daft at this moment in time but getting rid of the crocks should enable Grayson to totally change the gravy of previous recruitment of Quantity over Quality.

Has to be Quality first which should reduce the Quantity of shite and wasted wages.

See what July brings.

Big question is Why?.

Numerous reasons on its way!

Yeh the fact that we are practically the only club on the league who haven’t signed anyone and need to include a couple of kids even to make an 11 means we will be in a great position to be choosy next month with 5 weeks to go before the season starts.

Bisto, Oxo,Bovril, Take ya pick.

Ive heard of the keeper Johnny Bisto but not the other two.

1st day of training with a makeshift squad of 13.

Its certainly not a potential promotion squad.

Or am I not looking at the big picture!

Might be some of these available, never get injured and no salary required just some electricity to charge them up.

https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c5ylkyrkjnzo

Used to be L L but that was no help...

But but but….you aren’t allowed to judge until the season starts or you are ‘being negative’

Pre seasons don’t count
Where you get your signings from can’t be used as a guide
Money doesn’t buy success
If you have too many players some may be upset at not playing
The loan market doesn’t kick in until September

Have I missed anything else on the happy clappers bingo card?

mind you it would not be a bad thing if more got there full house up. you do not need to be a happy clapper to realise all that is correct and just one side of the coin. only the future will tell us all which side of the coin is proved to be correct. it does not mean either you are pro or anti raj either in your own take on team affairs.

Never criticise the Guvner

And never ever become popular with the fans.

You have to be ninja level happy clappers to make something out of this mess. They are persistent though, every year they are made to look daft but still come back every summer with their quick fire clichés.

To be fair, there's been very few optimistic posts over the last few months, and most of them have been optimistic re a takeover rather than how the team will perform.
Criticism of the manager and team is unfair until we see how they actually perform in league matches.
Don't see how being critical of signings before we've seen them kick a ball tallies with being supposedly the best fans in the league?

you mean when the team is playing well and winning. the vic must be the best place for a player in a winning team but the opposite when not. patiance is a word not included in many fans vocabulary.

My take on most things, not just Pools is hope for the best, others expect the worst, I suspect many are ground down wrt Pools from being the former and are now among the latter.
On average since the club was formed we do well 1 season in 10 or so, the odds aren't great are they?

The Past cannot be changed.

This is a well established pattern of poor recruitment and poor results. We're talking years. The same type of signings are being made by the same people. It doesn't take a genius to predict the likelihood of what will happen next season. Seeing things shaping up just as poorly as they always have is not being a bad supporter, it's just not being a naive one.

Criticism of a manager who's never put a team out or of players we've never seen on the pitch certainly doesn't reflect well on any supporter though does it.
Every one of these new arrivals give us the same spiel, can't wait to play in front of our magnificent support, yet if they look in here some of them are written off before they've finished their arrival interview.

This 100 %

Facts are Facts.
1 good manager from the 20.(both clubs)

The majority of players can't help being shit or crocked n still wanted by Pools.

We need a proper top man.

Try not to get upset kid

Takeaway these recent years and the div 4 past is acceptable.
Today isent.

Much of our div 4 history was equally dire, if not worse imo. If not for the "old pals act" that was re-election we'd have gone to the wall in the 70s.

How can div 4 be worse than 5

Don't you remember the days of wondering all summer if we'd be re-elected? The football was dire, the state of the pitch and ground was dire, winding up orders were about every 3 months. If it wasn't for our chairmen convincing their mates that they should re-elect us we'd have been a distant memory. Our very existence was almost constantly under threat from debtors or because of our awful performances in div 4.
There were far more worrying times then than there are now, even though the level is lower.

Remember them well.

But we survived and went onto div 3.
Almost div 2.

The good old days.

Ok PTID...Let's have a charity bet...50 snodgers to a chosen Charity.
I reckon we'll finish 22nd 25/26 Season. Closest to prediction wins....loser gives 50 snodgers to Charity of the winner.
My Charity is PDSA.

Great choice of Charity that one close to my heart.

I reckon he will say 6th

I'm not the one making any predictions so why would I place a bet. Bang your money in with the bookies you'll get better than evens I reckon.

3 weeks later and I'd of expected a tad of Quantity /Semi-Quality added to the squad.

It's still a front 3 who cudent hit a barn door last season.

2 finished pretendy coaches.

A few kids.

No pace in the wide areas.

See what next week brings eh.

Maybe these Trialists tare FC Gray fields a new one to get on the payroll.

UTP.

Placing a bet on Hartlepool United to finish 25th next season will attract excellent odds. I reckon in excess of 50-1. Fifty quid on and a potential profit of £2500 could be looming. I'm sure PDSA would lick their lips at that prospect.

so would you be happy if we were in div.4 and be favourites for re election in the old days or relegation in new money just because you can still say we are an EFL club at the moment. Even the games in the last two seasons have been no worse than the last relegation season. A win or defeat is still that no matter who the opponents are.

and the players who did come in who did there best to be worse than the ones who left at the end of the previous season. poor recruitment has not just started recently by a long shot.

It's the standard n level of our new defeats.
Major gulf that division difference.

If there really was a major gulf there'd be no argument for 3 up 3 down between league 2 and the NL.

Most clubs that get promoted out of the NL do well in the football league. In the last 10 years only 4 teams have come back down - Macclesfield, who went out of business, FGR, who had a spell in League 1 before they dropped back through the ranks, us and Sutton.

Come to think of it, the season Pools and Sutton went up must have been a really poor one, considering the team we beat in the play-off final has been stuck in the National League South for the last couple of years...

Well the non recruitment continues.

Surely to God we not expecting one or two of these Trialists to look good v FC Gray fields and Redcar or whoever it is we play next week.

And then up the numbers with more shite.

Takeovers must be off big style.

Must be bad the happy clappers have gone underground.

But I won't rule out the main 1 popping up like a happy mole.

Ya after

WSO.

When is Judgement day.

Mine is middle of October but probably get brought forward.
Are you Gunna give them a serious gelling period till February!

I'd say after the first 8 games or so, on past history Raj may very well pull the trigger by November if we're seriously struggling though. Fev caretaker till end of season if that happens assisted by LL.

Not really the managers fault though