Warren — FM 2011 Hartlepool United Part 2 2012/13

Hi everyone and welcome back to the next instalment of my Hartlepool story here on allthatisfm. I have to start with an apology as I haven’t been commenting on other people’s stories recently but I have been ill the past week and a bit with flu. Let’s get back to the story and after 18 games of the season played I was well placed in the play-off spots hoping to hold onto one of these places come the end of the season.

December Results

A total of 6 games game before the year ended and I was very pleased at the end of the year as I finished it with an unbeaten month. A tricky game against Blackpool ended in a respectable and probably the likeliest outcome of a draw. Successive 4-1 wins against Ipswich and Plymouth was followed up with a 1-1 draw against leaders Wolves. The month was completed with two home wins against Wigan and Coventry respectively.

Performance of the month

v Ipswich

Two goals apiece from Henaini and Moore was enough to overpower an Ipswich side who were running into a bit of good form. With the game being away from home it just piped Plymouth to the POTM.

January Results

Even thought we were dumped out of the 3^rd round of the FA Cup we managed to pick up maximum points in the league so I have to class this as a successful month. Wins came against Swindon, Sheffield United and Hull. A highlight of the month was the performances of January signing Suso who came from Liverpool on loan for 6 months until the season ended as I felt he could push the team forward into a promotion spot

Performance of the Month

v Hull

Goals from Suso and Norregaard in the final 5 minutes of the match saw a dramatic turnaround as my Hartlepool side came from one nil down and won the game in the dying minutes of the match.

Febuary Results

I was pretty disappointed with the way things went in February as our performances didn’t show the end results as I felt we could have come away with more points than we did. It has slightly dented the title hopes but it wasn’t too bad and I can still reach the top two places if I can have a good run of form.

Performance of the Month

v Preston

The stand out performance of the month was defiantely the 4-0 away wins against Preston. Changing to the 5-3-2 with wingbacks formation looked to be the main reason why we won this game so well and it is always nice when both of those wingbacks score.

March Results

A half decent month but it wasn’t promotion pushing form. The less said about the Brighton game the better as I had a number of chances to win the game but never converted them. Another poor performance lead to a 2-0 defeat to Doncaster but in all fairness they placed really well on the day. Moore was unsurprisingly man of the match against Reading and two goals from Watson ended the month of a high in a 2-0 win.

Performance of the Month

V Reading

A superb hat-trick and the first of the season for my Hartlepool side from Luke Moore set up a thrilling 3-2 win over Reading. Special praise has to go to Moore and Henaini as he worked his socks off and deserved a goal.

Table

I got carried away again and forgot to take a screenshot but I looked back at the fixtures and worked out how many points they would have had at the end of March so the table would look like this.

1. Wolves                74pts

2. Sheffield Utd    74pts

3. Newcastle         72pts

4. HARTLEPOOL 72pts

5.Wigan                  68pts

Thanks for reading

Warren

P.S I also had an offer to go and manage a team in Germany called Eintracht Frankfurt but I rejected the offer of course.