By Charlie Summerbell
September 28 2011

Hartlepool United have dropped a place in the League One table after a busy week when they didn't even have a game, but going from third to fourth top is not breaking any hearts at Victoria Park, where Pools face one of their biggest games of the season at the weekend.

Sheffield Wednesday, level on 19 points with Pools but four places behind on goal difference, are the visitors as Mick Wadsworth and his players attempt to extend their unbeaten start to the season to double figures.

Having guided his team to four wins out of four in September, if there’s any justice in the world Wadsworth will be named League One manager of the month. But, of course, Pools have found out time after time in the past that football and justice don’t always go together.

Meanwhile, they can prepare for the Wednesday game basking in the satisfaction of coming away from Bournemouth not only with three points, but also with South Coast sour grapes ringing in their ears.

Bournemouth and their fans felt they should have won the game and two Pools players should have been sent off. On the local paper’s website, one fan even claimed that Pools fans would have gone home to their hovels and unemployment after the game.

How many times in the past have Pools lost games and felt hard done by? What a pleasant change it makes to win and see the opposition feel the same way.

Wadsworth won’t lose too much sleep over all that, of course, having achieved his aim of improving the Pools squad for this season.

Not only has he improved it, he’s transformed it from mediocre to highly promising and he told the Northern Echo: "We have improved as a squad and as a team and a club. If we weren't then someone should hit me over the back of the head with a shovel - we had to make it better.

"The chairman and board have been supportive in what we do and I appreciate it.

"We hope for a good season and it's about working really hard to maintain a fantastic start.''

Wednesday, an alleged big club, will pose a major test of the unbeaten run ... but who’s to say Pools aren’t up to the challenge?