James Brown - doubt

By Charlie Summerbell
October 28 2009

Hartlepool United now know they will be playing Mark Cooper’s Kettering Town at Victoria Park in the first round of the FA Cup, but before that chance to start off on a good run in the knock-out competition, they have the task of maintaining their recent run of good results at Brighton in League One. With their first back-to-back wins in a year behind them following last weekend’s 1-0 home success over Tranmere, Pools should travel to the South Coast in a relatively confident mood, though there’s a chance the ever-dangerous James Brown could miss the trip after picking up a knock on the knee in training this week.
Beaten five times at home already this season, Brighton are fourth bottom of League One, six points behind tenth-top Pools, but Chris Turner and his players should be well aware that they can’t afford to take them lightly.
The Withdean alleged Stadium is not the best venue in League One by any means, but Pools are quite capable of getting a result if they can hit the sort of form that saw them win 2-0 at Swindon in their previous away game.
Turner’s team is by no means the finished article yet, but to be fair to him he has gone on record saying that it could be the second half of the season before the squad he has put together really starts to gel and play to its full capacity.
Turner and the team, as well as some individual players, have come in for some unfair stick this season, mostly from the sort of moaners who expect a brand new team to play like Brazil straight away, and would moan about the state of the pitch if the team managed to win every game.
Tenth top with 19 points from 14 games is a better position than many more realistic people might have expected before the season kicked off, and their three home defeats came at the hands of teams all currently in the top six.
It really is a case of so far, so good for Pools.
If they can get a result at Brighton, they can go into the Cup-tie against Kettering in the sort of mood that should make a giant-killing highly unlikely.