By Albatross
January 9 2004

Hartlepool United can concentrate on the League now; and hopefully a few more in the ground than normal as well. It's time to get a new unbeaten home run going, and what better team to start it against than Peterborough? Posh were of course our first opponents of the season, and given the comments from the home fans after our 4-3 victory you'd have thought that it heralded the start of a long hard season for Pools - the number of them saying that we were nowhere near good enough to stay in this division was legion. The return fixture sees the situations of the two clubs almost exactly reversed from that view, and Pools will be looking to make sure that the humble pie sticks that bit more in the craw.

Just two wins at London Road - the first of them just before Christmas - have seen them struggling as part of a quintet at the bottom. While they have generally been in the lead of that group, that has been no thanks to a home record that even now is next to worst in the division. Tuesday's 5-2 home win over Notts County has given them more breathing space, and a win over Pools may see them attain their best league position since the middle of September - but even so they remain closer on points to the relegation places than the middle of the table.

The thing for Pools to be wary of is that what has kept them alive has been their away form. 16 points from 12 fixtures has been bettered by just four teams. Recent form has been mixed though; while they may have won half of their last four league fixtures away from home, the last two were defeats. Their last away win came at struggling Wycombe at the end of November; and they have gone out of both LDV Trophy and FA Cup (to Northampton and Coventry respectively) in away ties since then as well to give four successive away defeats in all competitions.

With Peterborough having spent most of the season in a precarious position, you may have expected the manager to be under pressure from the board. Barry Fry however became the majority shareholder in early October, and can quite legitimately claim to be the most secure manager in the league. The only move upstairs he has made was to a new office! This is hardly what many Posh fans wanted to hear - they are effectively stuck with Fry until he decides to go.

Comings and goings on the playing side though have been something else. 31 players have been involved with the first team this season - some as unused subs - while since that opening day game Fry has made five permanent signings (two after loan spells), and a further four loan signings - two of whom are still at the club. Most recently, Fry has brought in two players this week from Notts County - the side they beat in midweek - in defender Steve Jenkins and forward Clive Platt. Three players have left permanently, and a further six are currently out on loan to assorted Conference clubs after Peterborough disbanded their under 19 side, leaving many of them with no regular football. The most high profile departure was leading scorer Leon McKenzie, sold to Norwich for a fee in excess of £300,000.

Posh look likely to give Platt his debut, while Jenkins may start after recovering from flu - but there are plenty of players unavailable. Chris Kanu, who was paraded before the fans on the opening day, is away on African Nations Cup duty, Gareth Jellyman is injured, and Tom Williams is also unlikely to take part.

With McKenzie gone, the main goal threats for Peterborough have been 36 year old Andy Clarke with nine, and Richard Logan with six. Platt is an awkward player to play against and has caused us problems in the past - but his strike rate is none too impressive - worse than a goal every five games. This season he's scored six for Notts County - but two of those were in the FA Cup against Shildon, and another in the same competition against Gravesend.

Barry Fry is as usual playing his cards close to his chest as far as team selection goes, but as opposed to the start of the season he's more likely to be worrying about Pools than we about them. A team without any sort of result away from home since the end of November, missing a few players, and struggling anyway should be a banker home win for Pools. Posh fans seem to have been given a little more confidence after their midweek win - but although 5-2 may look a good score on paper, it was only in the last 10 minutes that they made the score look comfortable - against a side that has spent all except one week of the season in the bottom four and sacked their manager in the aftermath of the game.

Pools have no new injury worries - Gabbiadini remains on the sidelines, with concerns expressed as to whether he'll play again - and will go into this game in determined mood. We got a lot of plaudits out of the game at Sunderland, but that hasn't gained us any league points - and after the Boxing Day defeat we need to bounce back and set a new home run going. I won't be at all surprised if we see the same starting eleven as at Sunderland - although one possible change may be Joel Porter for Robinson as Cooper continues to search for his best pairing up front. Eifion Williams is looking like he's come into form though, and if he can replicate his performance at Sunderland will surely hit the net at least once.

Almost of as much importance as the result though will be the crowd figure: how many of the floaters and other supporters not usually at the Vic but on parade at Sunderland will come and back the team in a league match? Peterborough are unlikely to bring more than a couple of hundred, and that in itself means there's likely to be fewer there than against Barnsley - but Hodcroft must be hoping to see something around the 6000 mark.

Prediction time, and I'm going for Pools to win this one comfortably. Peterborough are one of the weaker sides in the division, and we're starting to come into a bit of form - even the Barnsley defeat was far from a bad performance - so we should put Posh away with a bit to spare. 3-0 to Pools, Williams, Porter and Strachan to notch.