Richie J - goal

By Clarence Rode
March 29 2009

It’s looking bleak for Hartlepool after a bad weekend for them in League One. Friday night’s 3-2 defeat at Southend was bad enough to take, especially when they didn't deserve to lose, but results on Saturday made it a lot worse and Pools are now just a single point ahead of fourth bottom Yeovil, who have two games in hand.

A crisis has been on the cards for weeks, but now it’s materialised as a string of bad results and bad performances have dumped Pools in the clarts.
Yeovil aren't the only team to have games in hand on Pools, and whole those games need to produce points to make them worth having, it puts further pressure on Pools to produce the wins they need.
Caretaker boss Chris Turner can talk all he likes about the team playing well but not getting the breaks and about officials playing badly, but the simple measure of how good or bad his squad is and how well or badly he is doing as manager is the League table, and it makes depressing reading.
If Pools don’t win at home to Hereford next weekend, they will be favourites to join Brighton, Cheltenham and Hereford in the drop to League Two.
Those three appear to be doomed, barring late-season miracle revivals, so the battle is on to avoid being the fourth team to go down … unless the recession starts claiming victims before the end of the season and teams are docked points for going into administration or clubs go out of existence, as dear old Darlo almost did last week.
So no matter how lucky the opposition are and how bad the officials are, Pools are desperate for points.
Yes, they did play well at Southend, but they need to play well in all their remaining games to make sure of safety.
On Saturday, Brighton’s point at home to Tranmere didn’t do a lot of damage, and the same applies to Carlisle’s home draw with Northampton. Crewe losing at home to Millwall was a good result, but Orient beating Oldham and Yeovil beating Swindon were bad results for Pools.
It’s time they posted some results that prove to be bad for the others.