By Albatross
January 16 2006

Is there a chink of light in the darkness that currently surrounds Pools? Adam Boyd has resumed full training, and Joel Porter may be involved in a reserve game this week. Will they be back in the first team in time to save Martin Scott's job and prevent Pools being relegated? Porter will apparently take part in the reserve team fixture at Scarborough on Wednesday. (Wasn't that the one where Pools were supposed to have got the time wrong before Christmas? Maybe Pools did have a legitimate reason for the non-appearance after all!) I'd expect him to need at least one more reserve game - a full 90 minutes - before being ready for the bench for the first team, but it does mean that we may be welcoming Joel back on the pitch sometime early in February.

Meanwhile Adam Boyd has resumed full training, and I would assume is pencilled in for a reserve run-out in another week or two assuming there's no adverse reactions. That probably puts him a fortnight further back than Porter, but you never know, maybe by the middle of February both of our first choice strikers will be ready for action.

By the sounds of Saturday's 0-0 draw with Tranmere that can't happen too soon. Pools again lacked penetration, and didn't carve out much in the way of clear chances. Things weren't helped by Llewellyn's sending off of course, but to be honest the midfield seemed to lack balance in any case - Ben Clark and Strachan are more defensively-minded players, Sweeney is more the person trying to get on the end of a throughball than the provider of it, and Llewellyn has yet to show what made Scott pay out a fee for him. Without Butler, we are suffering from a lack of ideas and invention; without Boyd and Porter, we lack forwards that have the ability to make something out of nothing and carve out their own opportunities. It's at times like this that I wish that Robertson was fit or we had someone else to play at left back; Humphreys, although much-maligned in some quarters, is one of the few fit players we seem to have that has that creative spark - and is stuck at full-back.

Saturday also saw more active signs of protest against Martin Scott, with an increase of chanting "Scott Out" (I think there's even some audible in the background during his post-match interview on Pools World), and a couple of banners that were swiftly removed by the stewards (including at least one person involved in a protest). Discontent continues to grow, and no wonder: we are now 19th, teams around us have games in hand, and we are in serious trouble.

Only Rotherham have earned fewer points than us at home (from a game less as well); only the plummeting MK Franchise have fewer points from their last eight games. In fact we now have no win in seven, and with Swansea our next opponents I suspect most will expect that to become eight next weekend. Scott may have been full of talk before the game of how he was looking up the league rather than down; however the truth is that if he is looking up the table he's having to look further pretty much every week.

Hodcroft's programme notes made interesting reading again. The view he presents of the Yeovil game doesn't match that of the fans that made the long journey down there or that of the Yeovil fans for that matter; but the final paragraph is in many ways the telling one. He talks of how Pools are capable of doing better than we have been, but acknowledges that our League Position can't really be regarded as a false one. "There are no points for excuses" is how he finished the column; well, Pools have taken six points out of the last 27 available. Scott can talk all he likes about not being able to fault the effort and commitment of the players - as he did yet again after the match - but for the fans, the excuses wore thin a long time ago. All we want to know now is how bad things have to get before Scott is finally relieved of his position - and whether it will be in time to stave off relegation.