By Albatross
March 31 2006

It's Friday Night Football time again at Victoria Park, and Oldham Athletic are the visitors. The Latics are in good form and are pushing for at least a playoff place - can Hartlepool United upset their applecart? With Pools currently in the relegation zone, a win is a must for us too. To say that tonight's game is a fixture that both teams want to win is probably an understatement. A win for Oldham tonight would lift them into 4th place and give them hope of battling for an automatic promotion slot; fail to do so and they could find themselves losing ground on some of the other playoff contenders. For Pools, three points would lift us into 19th at least and a three goal victory would see us overhaul Yeovil; lose, and it's entirely possible we could end the weekend in 23rd.

The Latics away record isn't bad, but they have lost more than they've won; recently things have been variable with a defeat to Rotherham followed by a thumping 4-1 win over Bradford. Last weekend they won 3-1 at home to Blackpool. Despite this on the last eight games they are the form team in the division with six wins and a draw.

Luke Beckett was the main source of goals in the last two wins, grabbing all three against the Seasiders to move to five in two games; he's leading scorer with 14 goals. Andy Liddell isn't too far behind with 11, while Paul Warne has also hit double figures. The other significant goalscorer is Chris Porter; the former Bury man has netted nine times this season. The lesson is clear; just marking Beckett out of the game is unlikely to be enough to stop our opponents scoring.

The team news from Oldham seems to be that there won't be any changes to the side that won last weekend; on the bench though there may be a return for David Eyres, who at 42 is redefining the term "Veteran". As for Hartlepool, the improving health of the squad means that we have options in a number of positions now and it's possible that there may be several changes from the defeat at Southend last week. Up front is the big issue though, with Stephenson admitting that we need to find more of a cutting edge; I would expect Boyd to start alongside Porter despite rumours about Adam's knee not being 100%. There's some speculation that James Brown may be on the bench, but having had only a couple of less than full length outings even if he does play a part it would be hard on the lad to expect him to turn things around on what would be his first team debut. The search for goals may mean a recall for Hugh Robertson; his set piece ability has been much missed and Stepho may be tempted to start him with Humphreys moving into midfield to take over as and when Shuggy gets tired.

In a lot of ways this is crucial game for Pools. While relgation or survival will not be decided by this result, a win will give players and fans the confidence and belief that we will achieve safety while a defeat - particularly if results go against us on Saturday - could easily see gloom and despondancy descend on the fans even if the players can be kept positive. A draw would in some ways be as bad as a defeat - we need to win our home games if we're to stay in this division.

Oldham may be in form, but then again Pools are unlikely to be overawed by that. We ended Chesterfield's long unbeaten run and comprehensively got the better of Huddersfield; I'm going to stick my neck out and say that we'll get three points here too with a 2-1 win thanks to goals from Porter and Humphreys.