Poole - chances

By Charlie Summerbell
February 13 2013

Hartlepool United's age-old problem, weakness in front of goal, robbed them of the chance to climb off the bottom of the League One table when they were held to a goalless home draw by second bottom Portsmouth.

A fortnight ago, Pools won 3-1 at Pompey, but this time they couldn’t find a way through, over or past a well-organised and highly-populated defence, despite dominating most of the game.

With little else to aim for in a season that has been doomed to end in failure for months, Pools quite rightly feel disappointed by the result, but they are playing better than crisis club Portsmouth and surely it’s only a matter of time before they do overtake them. Take a look at how the table stood for much of the first half of the season, and even that would be a major achievement.

“It’s frustrating,” boss John Hughes admitted to the Northern Echo “Expectations were on and winning would have put us off the bottom. “We were missing that wee bit of magic to open up the defence, that killer pass. On the other side, it’s unbeaten in four and a clean sheet. But I’m disappointed as this was there for us to move off the bottom – a good chance at home. “We tried to stretch it, changed formation, used substitutes, and it didn’t happen. We had half-chances, but couldn’t get through.’’

The result meant Pompey, whose future looks even more bleak than Pools, picked up only their fourth point from the last 20 games. Their best chances fell to Hartlepool lad Adam Reed, on loan from Sunderland and allegedly keen to join his home-town club next season.

He sent one shot across goal and had another blocked, but the game’s two top players were James Poole and Jack Baldwin, both clearly as desperate for the win as Hughes was.

Perhaps they can make up for it on Saturday when mid-table Leyton Orient are at the Vic, just a week after they beat leaders Tranmere.