Hartlepool’s fourth home defeat of the season brought with it an unwanted record. It was the first time in the clubs history that we’d had 5 consecutive home defeats.
Sure, people can say that Norwich will be table toppers but based on that showing they were there for the taking. We gifted them the game on a plate but worryingly we never looked like scoring.
Last year we had the second best home scoring record in the league, better than Leicester, Peterborough and MK Dons with only Leeds scoring more goals at home.
This season we’ve mustered 2 home goals in 4 games despite signing 3 new strikers over the summer.
I think pretty much everyone agrees that Turner got it wrong tactically at the weekend. Boyd had scored and put in a decent performance on Tuesday yet he was dropped in favour of Colin Larkin.
James Brown would obviously be first choice striker if he was fully fit but we face a big problem when he isn’t, as seen on Saturday.
Behan was very poor, I liked the look of him in the first couple of games but he was dreadful at the weekend. He’s not the fastest to begin with yet looked sluggish against Norwich.
He gave the ball away too easily and didn’t win enough headers which is exactly what was needed when we decided to play the long ball game.
Larkin ran about a lot but again failed to have much impact on the game. I think Turner is unsure of his first choice strike force.
We keep hearing that Boyd has been injured and he needs time to impress but he can’t do that with 20 minute cameo appearances at the end of games that are basically lost already.
I don’t particularly but the whole ‘the team needs to gel’ mentality. Including the first team friendlies most of them have played 13 games together already and yet we looked like we had gone backwards on Saturday.
Calls for Turner’s head are premature but he needs to get his side to shape up quickly or it could be a long, hard season ahead.
PooliePoolie
The latest on site poll asks for your opinion on who do you think should be first choice strike force, plus you can give your thoughts over in the Vital Hartlepool forums.
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Agree with you – I’ve not been impressed by Behan at all. From what I’ve seen of him in the two games I’ve been to so far (Charlton and Norwich), he can’t run, can’t tackle, can’t pass and can’t shoot – not exactly good attributes for a striker. I seriously hope he’s just finding his feet because the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. A mate pointed out to me today that we actually have the second worst goalscoring record in the football league outside of the Prem with only Dar-low being worse than us – that really isn’t the sort of company we want to be keeping! I honestly think we need to sling Arnarsson in as our big target man against Oldham because he surely can’t be any worse than Behan was on Saturday. Sorry, I needed to get that off my chest…
agree with both assessments-the players are still finding their feet,and just getting to know each other and their games-but on the other side of the coin,good players should be able to adapt-and we have had 7 competitive games to ‘gel a bit’.and it aint happening.we dont look like winning a home game,dont look capable of scoring even 1 goal never mind 2 in most of the games so far either.
for me the changes need to be rang throughout the midfield and forward line-sweeney,mcsweeney,jones,behan and larkin are the ones who should be stewing over their ‘recent efforts’ on the bench come friday night.
if any of those start the game (as in every1 bar larkin,they have all consistently been poor for a number of the league games) it will send out the wrong message.But,If turner shows some balls and rightly drops them, we have players waiting in the wings to prove themselves-i will back turner to the hilt if he does that,problem is if he keeps faith with them and another performance and result like sat comes along-It could make or break morale and his confidence in the dressing room and on the terraces.
Saying about dropping people, but to me maybe not everyone else noone has really stood out for the right or wrong reasons so its not really obvious who could be dropped. And as it happens the one surprise in the team that CT has made was a wrong one!