By Albatross
March 5 2003

Is Corporal Jones in the house? Last night's defeat to Lincoln may have been a big disappointment, and has highlighted once again a couple of issues that need to be addressed - but there's no sign of Clive Dunn wandering around shouting "Don't Panic!"..... It's taken 12 games and more than two months, but Pools finally lost their first game of 2003 last night with a to say the least disappointing 3-0 reverse at Lincoln. Is this the start of a slide, or a one-off blip? Either way, there are some lessons to be learned.

When you read some of the comments from Pools Fans, you get the feeling we didn't play well at all. However, go and read the Lincoln reports and views, and a different picture emerges: Pools weren't outfought or outplayed, they were caught out with a spectacular finish from a set piece and then hit by two late breakaway goals when pushing forward. Most Imps seem to think we are the best side to have played at Sincil Bank this season, and reckon that only Alan Marriot's form in the Lincoln goal prevented them slipping to defeat.

So which is the true picture? Well, the truth of the matter is that Lincoln put away their chances while we didn't. Marriot may have had a great game, but there were also some glaring misses from Pools players, so we hardly made the most of our opportunites.

This had been coming for a while. We may have scored six in the previous two games, but of those goals the only one to come from a recognised striker was Boyd's penalty against Darlo. Meanwhile, Eifion Williams seems to be having a crisis of confidence and desperately needs a goal to get back on track. The Boyd/Williams partnership for me isn't ideal; neither player is necessarily a strong physical player who can hold the ball up, and both are likely to get muscled off the ball too often. A partnership of one of those players with Richardson, Watson - if fit - or Henderson might offer more variety and give opposition defences something else to worry about.

One thing that has changed in recent games is that we seem to be going for the throat more away from home. Certainly against Macclesfield, York, Darlo and Lincoln we have looked to attack more, and in the last three of those games the opposition's keeper has been forced to make some very good saves to save the day - only the Macclesfield game saw us claim all three points. Compare this with some of our games earlier in the season, where against Oxford and Shrewsbury we played more contained football and came away with a single goal victory each time. Maybe we need to go back to keeping it tight.

This brings us to another issue: the defence. Five goals conceded in two games is not a good record, and yet as a unit the back four seem to be very solid. The weakness would appear to be set pieces. Both of Darlington's goals came from free kicks, while Lincoln's opener did as well; and this is not a new problem. All season long we have conceded more than our fair share of goals from corners and free kicks; go and read reports on the games against Torquay, Lincoln at the Vic, Swansea away and Rushden for examples. For some reason, players aren't picking up their opponents the way they should - and have practiced. This problem irritated Turner, and no doubt irritates Newell as well - but it must be fixed soon, as other teams will be picking up on this and looking to exploit it.

On the other hand, we musn't get too carried away. Lincoln have a very good defensive unit - no side has conceded fewer goals - and after scoring were forced to play in their own half for much of the game before hitting us on the counter attack. This is a side that is now in the playoff positions and has a real chance of going up. Meanwhile, our position in the promotion spots is growing steadily more secure as the other teams all take points off each other: currently there is still a gap of 18 points back to Friday's opponents Bury in 4th. Yes, that gap may well close as the other teams catch up on games, but to catch up 18 points in 12 games is still a very big ask. As for the title, Rushden still can't get closer than six points with their game in hand, and they have to play two of the promotion contenders and five of the teams in the relegation scrap - games that they are not always convincing in having drawn with Swansea and Torquay and lost twice to Oxford in recent games.

At the moment the results are going fairly close to how I predicted a couple of weeks ago - win over Swansea, draw at Feethams and then defeat last night. I'm not claiming to be Nostrodamus, but if things continue this way, then we will still end up with 90 points and probably the title. Let's hope we bounce back with a vengeance on Friday Night.