Pools Squad | Vital Football

Pools Squad

Old Poolie

Vital Squad Member
With the season end just days away does the squad require a radical overhaul not just a few tweaks to ensure competitiveness next season?
I'm sure we all have our favourite players and those who we'd happily never see in a Pools shirt again.
For me it is a radical overhaul so that the approach can be reset.
 
We have a "radical overhaul" every summer but we never really get any better. This year's points total is pretty close to last season's despite relative stability off the pitch.
 
To be radical I think it needs to look at all elements. New owner....tick, new manager....tick, additions to playing staff....tick but we’re still not improving.
We’re not shifting that losing mentality that’s haunted us for however long.

If we’re making changes are we making the right changes?

One thing that stands out to me this season is a post match interview, not Hignett’s I might add, that emphasised we are carrying forward the losing mentality we had under Bates and the interviewee is from that era which makes me think the defensive tactics weren’t down to Bates alone.

To paraphrase the content of the interview, I think it may have been after a draw at, possibly, Sutton, it was said in the interview that the players were told ‘if we can’t win the game don’t lose it’. Now that’s all we’ll and good if you’re top three and maintaining an unbeaten run but when you have the mindset we have it’s almost like saying it’s okay to draw games. It’s not. We need to get rid of this mentality and those who support it, it’s a negative attitude and it’s stopping us moving forward.
If it’s in the minds of the players that it’s okay to draw games we’ll draw games, we won’t stretch ourselves we’ll end up, potentially, drawing 46 games and end up with 46 points.... which will get us relegated.

I’m absolutely certain this is not Hignett’s philosophy and it is, in my opinion, undermining what he is attempting to achieve, see this seasons points tally and league position.

It’s all well and good changing the front of house staff but if it’s those behind the scenes preventing progression why should they be exempt from scrutiny and possibly change?

The players I mentioned in another post can make decent fist of getting out of this league next term, we need to make other difficult decisions no doubt but we keep changing the players when it’s not necessarily solely their fault, it’s additional factors influencing poor decision making on the pitch.

:red: