By Clarence Rode
October 10 2007

Hartlepool boss Danny Wilson is establishing a reputation for himself as League One's answer to the King of Rotation, Liverpool's Rafa Benitez. The Pools chief has made changes galore already this season, and we can probably expect more tinkering when his team takes on Bristol Rovers on Friday night.

Wilson hasn't spent quite as much money as Benitez, of course, and he did say before the season started that it takes time for teams to settle into a rhythm and for a club's best team to click into gear. He is also a great believer in the horses for courses theory, whereby he picks his team based on the sort of challenge he expects from the opposition.
Wilson's tinkering gets up the noses of some fans, but it's difficult to argue with results. Pools haven't won every game, but they've started better than many people expected and in mkost of the games they've lost, they've been unlucky.
Perhaps the only really bad performance all season so far was the home defeat againt Walsall - no matter how badly you play, you shouldn't lose to poor teams.
In the away defeats against Luton, Leeds and Forest, Pools have done enough to earn at least a point, and their overall form has been good.
They've started a season in which many fans would have been happy to accept survival better than expected, and missing out on Darryl Duffy during the summer has not been the disaster many expected.
Let's take a look at the team, position by position:

Goalkeeper - Jan Budtz now established between the sticks, and not a bad replacement for Dimi. Aron Lee-Barrett doesn't look a bad deputy, either.
Right-back - Jamie McCunnie has looked a class act there, but Wilson could now be thinking about a switch to midfield, perhaps even a swap with Liddle?
Centre-half - Micky Nelson and Godwin Antwi have pushed Ben Clark (right) out, but many fans believe Clark is better than on-loan Antwi. The plot has been thickened by the recent signing of Danny Coles on loan from Hull.
Left-back - Robbie Elliott or Richie Humphreys? Humphreys is better going forward, but Elliott's experience means he's always handy to have around. Or could Wilson plump for three big defenders?
Right midfield - James Brown has been playing there, but some say he's wasted so far back. What about playing him up front, with Ian Moore or McCunnie wide right?
Central midfield - Gary Liddle and Willie Boland have been Wilson's first choices here, but in some games they have looked like clones of each other, both of them threatening to make themselves dizzy after turning in circles to get away from tight-marking opponents in home games.
Left midfield - Andy Monkhouse's spot after his early suspension, but he's not been at his best consistently, and Matty Robson is showing signs of threatening his hold on the place. Humphreys looked less comofrtable there than at left-back.
Strikers: Richard Barker and Ian Moore have been first-choice, but Moore hasn't scored as often as fans would like, and there is now a theory that if Brown and Joel Porter played up front, they could reporoduce what Porter and Adam Boyd did a couple of seasons ago. If you play a passing game with balls into the feet of the front men, who needs a target man? Barker takes a lot of phsyical punishment, and always gives 100 per cent. But the game in League One appears to be more about pace and precision than brute force.

In one way, Danny's very lucky having so many options - probably more than any Pools manager before him.
The strength in depth of his squad has already proved to be invaluable, and the longer the season goes on, the more invaluable it will become.
But, in another way, he's got a hell of a job on making some difficult decisions for the Bristol Rovers match and for the rest of the season.