By Albatross
May 19 2004

It's our fourth Playoff Semi in five seasons: but this time it's a division higher. Bristol City will provide plenty of opposition - but can Pools finally reach a final? To say that Bristol City will be a little disappointed to be in the Playoff Lottery is probably a big understatement. This season many people - including me - had expected them to be promotion certainties, if not title contenders. After all, they'd just missed out on a playoff spot two years ago, last season finshed third - three points behind Crewe - before being knocked out in the Playoff semi.

Instead, they have payed for a poor start relatively speaking (just 14 points from their first ten games) and once more missed out on automatic promotion - this time by one point and a healthy slice of goal difference. Wilson knows that his side are rightly favourites for the playoffs, and has the additional pressure of knowing that the early-season form - for which he took a fair bit of flack - was what eventually cost them. Failure to guide them up this time round could well reopen some debates that he'd rather not hear....

Recent form has been fairly good without being truly spectacular - unlike their run of eleven straight wins when Pools were one of the victims. They've won half of their last eight games, including their last two of the regular season. Away from home though, that last away game of the season - at already without anything to play for Barnsley - is their only victory in seven attempts, in a run that includes defeats at Luton, Tranmere, Stockport, Sheffield Wednesday and Port Vale.

Wilson is talking abou coming to Pools to attack, and he certainly has players to make that happen. When they beat us in January, Neale Cooper was quick to point out how much City had paid out for their strike force - the Lees Peacock and Miller. Peacock is leading league scorer with 14, while Milelr has 8 - but Miller has recently found himself on the bench, with Christian Roberts - who scored both goals against Blackpool last week to take his personal tally to 7 - getting the nod. With other players to call on such as Tony Rougier, Marc Goodfellow, Brian Tinnion and Scott Murray, there's no shortage of talent at Wilson's disposal.

Pools have a clean bill of health, and in many ways have the advantage of any underdog - we're not expected to beat City, have already gone further than expected, and so our players can almost relax into this game knowing that the pressure is all on their opponents. There's no slacking off though - the comments of our players this week indicate that we're right up for this game and are going to make life as difficult as possible for our opponents. To this end, it's entirely possible that Eifion will partner man of the moment Adam Boyd up front, with Clarke or possibly Istead coming in on the right flank.

In many ways it's a case of all bets are off now. This is effectively Cup Football, and for all Wilson's bluster about looking forward to taking on Hartlepool he knows that he'd much rather already be on the beach instead of facing what Pools know all too well can be a lottery. A win would set up a highly interesting tie at Ashton Gate on Wednesday, but I'm going for Pools to at least keep that a live game with a 1-1 draw, Eifion Williams to score.