'Really important' - Robbie Stelling previews Hartlepool United's next fixtures - video Dailymotion

Robbie Stelling previews Hartlepool United's next fixtures as Pools look to avoid being sucked into a relegation battle.

Transcript

00:00This next block of fixtures is going to be really important.

00:02Pools are at home to Songha Helmholtz, who have had a similar trajectory, actually,

00:06to themselves in the last couple of months, since they lost manager Andy Wing to Barrow.

00:11Matt Tang has come in and he's had a difficult start. They've fallen away

00:17as well, and fans are pretty frustrated there, too.

00:22They then host Ebbsley, who are bottom, Boston United, who are second bottom,

00:26and they go to Halifax as well in between those two games.

00:31If you look at their end of the season, I think they've got Gateshead, Forest Green,

00:35Rochdale and Oldham, all sides challenging for the playoffs at the very least.

00:39So that's going to be a really difficult end to the campaign.

00:43The one thing you don't want to do is you don't want to go into those final four matches still

00:46needing points to secure the National League status, of course.

00:50Pools will fail so they can go and get something from all of those games,

00:53but you don't want to leave it to chance.

00:55I think you've got to make the most of a run of winnable games here.

01:00Lindbergh is notoriously difficult to predict when it comes to team selection.

01:05I've certainly been feeling the heat of that, Rich, when it comes to my

01:08predicted 11s. Again, he surprised us a bit by going back to the 3-5-2.

01:14I've said in the past I would really like to see him pin his colours to the mast and say,

01:18this is my best team. I will change things occasionally, but I want to give

01:23a set of 11 players a run in the side.

01:27Because watching them on Saturday against Eastley, while there were some

01:32positive signs, it looked a bit like a side that had rarely played together.