By Albatross
April 7 2005

Neale Cooper has layed into the players, suggesting that they haven't been showing enough bottle. He has a point - and ironically it's against the strugglers that we haven't done well enough this season. With our position in the playoff zone looking increasingly precarious, there are more than a few fans unhappy following our inability to convert a 2-0 lead over modest opposition to three points - the boos ringing out around Victoria Park were evidence enough of that.

The problem with the performance for me was that it's just one time out of many when we have failed to win games we really should have expected the team to win. Forget the defeats against Tranmere, Hull and Luton; even those against the likes of Huddersfield; it's the points we've dropped against the lesser lights - teams that we really should be putting away comfortably - that may cost us a place in the top six.

Look at the teams currently in the bottom six, and then at our results against them, and you get a depressing story. Walsall, MK Dons, Wrexham, Peterborough, Stockport; we've lost to all of those, only really getting the results we expected against Torquay. We still have Walsall to play at home - but our current record against the bottom half dozen reads P11 W5 D1 L5. While we have demostrated ruthless efficiency on occasion - we scored five in our wins over Wrexham and MK Franchise, and four in the home win over Torquay - a bit more application in some of those games could have seen us with a much better record. In fact, several of the five defeats need not have ended up that way - we were ahead in three of those games. Ten or eleven points more was quite possible - and would have left us still thinking about an outside chance of automatic promotion rather than hoping that Brentford don't take advantage of their games in hand.

It's not one particular player having an off day, or even one area that's the problem. Yes against Wrexham at the Vic and arguably on one or two other occasions (Franchise away and on Tuesday) we have scored at one end only to concede at the other; but then again we failed to score in the away games at Peterborough or Stockport, and the midfield has an important defensive role to play too.

The thing that does spring to mind is attitude. In one or two cases the players seem to have thought that the game is won - only to be given a nasty shock when the opposition change things around. Posh did it on Tuesday; Walsall did it back in December, bringing Matt Fryatt off the bench to cause havoc after Pools had gone in at the break ahead and seemingly cruising. And Wrexham certainly benefitted from Pools seeming to slacken off after taking an early lead.

It would be all very well to say that this is a kick up the backside for the team - but they've had several recently and the response has seemed to be patchy at best. Our recent run of results are not what you'd call encouraging.

To be honest a quick look at the stats provides even more evidence. We may be close to the top when it comes to coming back from behind - but only Stockport have lost more games than Pools after taking the lead, and the five teams that have squandered more points from winning positions include three of the bottom four. In fact, had we held onto all of our leads we'd be an incredible 21 points better off. More than half of those are from games against the current bottom six.

Pools do at least have one saving grace. There are five games to go in the season; and wins in all of them would guarantee our playoff place. Even three wins might prove to be enough. Glory or disappointment? Here's hoping for glory - but right now I don't want to predict which way things will go.