Hartlepools view from their forum

[Horsham Gull]

alb 4 one good save diving at someones feet, other than that his usual hesitant not really good enough self. wont come for the ball at all, and probably the quietest keeper of all time. today we really needed a keeper like dimi who comes for crosses and does that one handed tipping the ball up in the air and then catching it thing.

sweeney 6.5 very steady away until he got injured. didnt put a foot wrong defensively but didnt get forward much.

humphreys 5 not his best game and found out as soon as they brought the fast lad on in the 2nd half who he lost completely at the back post for the first goal.

nelson 8.5 apart from one slip in the 2nd half he was superb defensively and also scored. must have won 40 headers in the 2nd half.

clark 7.5 also very good at the heart of defence and some trademark 40 yard balls to feet from defence.

robson 5 so inconsistent. had a mare for 85 minutes but had a couple of excellent long surging runs near the end bringing a great save from their keeper when it was 1-1.

liddle 5 i barely noticed he was playing. sat so deep in the second half he was on top of nelson and clark most of the time.

jones 7.5 his usual workaholic self. ran himself into the ground and kept possession well.

monky 7 excellent first half, not so good 2nd and at fault for the winner.

nardiello 8. classiest player on the pitch. was superb first half when given the ball to feet and very unlucky not to score. missed a great chance at the start of the second half after which never saw the ball.

porter 6. another quiet display from the aussie who looks injured. that said created the first goal out of nothing with a great surging run into the box and pull back for nelse.

turner 6 really needed to change things second half when we threw the game away by sitting back. not helped by a lack of options from the bench.

this was a classic game of 2 halves. we were all over them first half and should have been 2 or 3 up. the small crowd was already on the brighton players back and the 3 points looked guaranteed. nardiello, porter and monky were torturing their defenders but we just couldnt get the killer 2nd goal.

2nd half we seemed to sit back and let them take total control. they were still very poor but if you invite pressure for 45 minutes at this level something usually gives. we were undone by a harmless looking deep ball to the back post. humps totally lost the ex darlo lad who had come on as sub who knocked back across for forster to tap in.

the sickening winner came bang on 90 minutes when monky failed to clear his lines and the left midfield lad for them carried it to the bye line and pulled it back for the lad on loan from palace to head in.

all in all a shitty way to lose on a freezing cold afternoon in a pretendy football stadium. i really cannot underestimate how cold it was.

a great first 45 minutes with an impressive debut from nardiello where we passed the opposition off the park. an awful second half where we sat back way too deep and resorted to long ball nonsense.

again the lack of options from the bench was a factor. i dunno if rowell was one of the subs but he cartainly should have played at least the last 20 minutes ahead of liddle who wasnt at the races.

we also needed a striker to come on for joel who looked totally done in with 30 minutes to go.

all in all worrying that we couldnt beat one of the worst sides in the division even after leading at half time . some players just lack the belief that we can win these games. we desperately need a left back, a keeper and a right midfield player. sadly that looks unlikely to happen. on the second half showing today we will be fighting a relegation battle by the end of the season.

oh and mr tax paying poolie got ejected by a female steward for a stream of homophobic abuse. :shock:

there you go

 

[chez]

I like the bit about Nardiello. He missed a chance at the start of the 2nd half and didn't see the ball for the rest of the game!!

Hopefully that bit about us being one of the worst sides in the division wont be true for much longer.

 

[Whitterz]

of course he is going to be biased. He is a Hartlepool fan, and is not going to say "Brighton were the better side" etc etc.

At the end of the day, Hartlepool are still shite, had opportunities and failed to take them. We had opportunities and took them. They can bat on about " we should have scored 2 or 3" but that is what goal keepers are for, and that im afraid is football.

 

[severnside gull]

hmmm

a somewhat different view of our quality even allowing for the obviously partial outlook. Reading some of our own fans' comments the first half (again) was poor but at least we are on the up with more signings to come. I had a play with the BBC predictor tonight and reckon the guy is right - they will finish just above relegation and we will end near mid-table

 

[Notters]

Come on, of wasn't THAT cold, they're from way oop north for fecks sake!

 

[Whitterz]

And what the hell is that prick going on about "one of the worst sides in the division" ?

They are only 5 points ahead of us!

Its a long old season.

 

[gullshark]

'Small Crowd'

They usually only pull 4,000 or so! We're usually at least 6k+

 

[Gazwag]

'Small Crowd'

They usually only pull 4,000 or so! We're usually at least 6k+

1 Leeds United (7) 14 331548 33580 23682 40204 58.9%
2 Leicester City (1) 15 274992 23390 18333 32500 56.4%
3 Huddersfield Town (10) 15 201081 16950 13405 24500 54.7%
4 Milton Keynes Dons (2) 14 137081 17073 9792 22000 44.5%
5 Millwall (5) 14 121992 13041 8714 20146 43.2%
6 Southend United (13) 13 103270 10132 7944 12392 64.1%
7 Swindon Town (19) 14 106590 13001 7614 15728 48.4%
8 Peterborough United (4) 14 98536 13191 7038 15314 45.9%
9 Bristol Rovers (14) 13 91000 9002 7000 11976 58.4%
10 Carlisle United (18) 13 87436 12148 6726 16651 40.3%
11 Tranmere Rovers (9) 14 90988 22618 6499 16587 39.1%
12 Stockport County (8) 14 89150 10273 6368 11000 57.8%
13 Brighton & Hove Albion (20) 13 79146 7096 6088 8850 68.7%
14 Oldham Athletic (6) 15 87092 8901 5806 13559 42.8%
15 Northampton Town (15) 15 79511 7028 5301 7653 69.2%
16 Scunthorpe United (3) 13 68500 8315 5269 9183 57.3%
17 Walsall (12) 13 62498 8920 4808 11300 42.5%
18 Colchester United (11) 14 66669 6290 4762 6200 76.8%
19 Leyton Orient (21) 14 65274 6951 4662 9271 50.2%
20 Yeovil Town (17) 14 60830 6580 4345 9400 46.2%
21 Cheltenham Town (24) 14 57106 5726 4079 7407 55.0%
22 Crewe Alexandra (22) 13 50016 5780 3847 10118 38.0%
23 Hartlepool United (16) 14 49712 4507 3551 7229 49.1%
24 Hereford United (23) 13 41995 4061 3230 8843 36.5%

 

[JJ McClure]

Yeah the small crowd comment is a tad odd considering they only brought about 6 fans themselves.

 

[SNOOBS]

Nardiello was very average

Andrews did that Nelson everytime

 

[Gritt23]

Don't like hearing Hartlepool calling us one of the worst teams in the division.

 

[Superphil]

Love the line

"all in all a shitty way to lose on a freezing cold afternoon in a pretendy football stadium. i really cannot underestimate how cold it was."

surely you can estimate it, you were there




"oh and mr tax paying poolie got ejected by a female steward for a stream of homophobic abuse. :shock:"

About time

 

[Gully]

...a bit worrying that they have a player called monky...I guess he doesn't get hung up about it!

 

[Knotty]

Nardiello was very average

Andrews did that Nelson everytime

Nardiello was playing down the right wing in front of us in the first half. He was the class of the match during those 45 minutes and made Livermore look lost. On the first half performances I would have given Nardiello 8 and Livermore 3.

Difficult for us to see why that changed so much in second half.

 

[nail-Z]

...a bit worrying that they have a player called monky...I guess he doesn't get hung up about it!

booom tish

 

[Don Quixote]

Look, they can call us Rubbish but when we go on an unbeaten run all the way into may and finish 6th we'll be the ones laughing.

 

[eastlondonseagull]

Well done that steward

.

 

[pasty]

"a pretendy football stadium"

That actually made me laugh. Quite amusing.

 

[Hiney]

1 Leeds United (7) 14 331548 33580 23682 40204 58.9%
2 Leicester City (1) 15 274992 23390 18333 32500 56.4%
3 Huddersfield Town (10) 15 201081 16950 13405 24500 54.7%
4 Milton Keynes Dons (2) 14 137081 17073 9792 22000 44.5%
5 Millwall (5) 14 121992 13041 8714 20146 43.2%
6 Southend United (13) 13 103270 10132 7944 12392 64.1%
7 Swindon Town (19) 14 106590 13001 7614 15728 48.4%
8 Peterborough United (4) 14 98536 13191 7038 15314 45.9%
9 Bristol Rovers (14) 13 91000 9002 7000 11976 58.4%
10 Carlisle United (18) 13 87436 12148 6726 16651 40.3%
11 Tranmere Rovers (9) 14 90988 22618 6499 16587 39.1%
12 Stockport County (8) 14 89150 10273 6368 11000 57.8%
13 Brighton & Hove Albion (20) 13 79146 7096 6088 8850 68.7%
14 Oldham Athletic (6) 15 87092 8901 5806 13559 42.8%
15 Northampton Town (15) 15 79511 7028 5301 7653 69.2%
16 Scunthorpe United (3) 13 68500 8315 5269 9183 57.3%
17 Walsall (12) 13 62498 8920 4808 11300 42.5%
18 Colchester United (11) 14 66669 6290 4762 6200 76.8%
19 Leyton Orient (21) 14 65274 6951 4662 9271 50.2%
20 Yeovil Town (17) 14 60830 6580 4345 9400 46.2%
21 Cheltenham Town (24) 14 57106 5726 4079 7407 55.0%
22 Crewe Alexandra (22) 13 50016 5780 3847 10118 38.0%
23 Hartlepool United (16) 14 49712 4507 3551 7229 49.1%
24 Hereford United (23) 13 41995 4061 3230 8843 36.5%

So only Northampton & Colchester fill their ground more than we do

*liesdamnliesandstatistics*