Danny Wilson

By Clarence Rode
October 15 2008

Boss Danny Wilson believes on-loan Kevin Kyle’s presence in the Hartlepool attack will help top scorers Joel Porter and James Brown to pose more problems for opposing defences. So hopefully that will start to show at Walsall on Saturday, when Pools don’t just need a win – they are desperate for one.

The bottom end of the League One table is far too close for comfort, and another “we deserved something” game will start to put real pressure on the team.
They were unlucky not to get something out of last weekend’s 1-0 defeat at Northampton, where even the home team and their fans admitted the better team lost.
But hard-luck stories don’t win points and it would be a pleasant change for Pools to play badly and win.
After the Walsall game, Pools are at home top Huddersfield next Tuesday and at home to Brighton the following Saturday, two opportunities to improve their points tally.
But if they lose again at Walsall, the extra pressure another defeat will put on the team will mean they’ll probably go into both matches worrying about losing rather than wondering how many goals they are going to score.
Club captain Richie Humphreys says the continuing disappointing results away from home are frustrating the players – they are frustrating the fans as well, and even Wilson must be getting close to losing patience.
The manager dropped Gary Liddle at Northampton, saying that the midfielder needed a break.
But perhaps the best thing that can happen for Pools is that Willie Boland gets match fit and is available to start kicking people – in the nicest possible way, of course.

Meanwhile, the ban imposed on the Hartlepool Mail and the Northern Echo continues. The Mail's reaction has been to continue covering the club as well as it can when nobody at the Vic is allowed to speak to its reporters.
But the Echo appears to have given up Pools as a bad job - match previews and match reports are all it has published for the last few weeks, with no additional stories, speculation or updates.
Our insiders says the Mail and the club are in talks and are close to a conclusion - but it's almost reached a point where that sort of situation prompts the question : "Do I look as if I give a ****?"