Athletic continued their slump at a very cold and blustery Victoria Park where Hartlepool completed the double over the Latics. It was a game which was there for the taking, much like the Wycombe Wanderers game, but too many inept performances from too many players just going through the motions was again their downfall. Only Pawel Abbott, Chris Taylor and Sean Gregan came out of the match with much credit while their team-mates severely let themselves, the club and it's supporters down badly.
Dave Penney commented, "It's frustrating to be missing our big players. We had no cutting edge without Pav and Taylor, to be fair it's still a gamble to put them on, Pav has scored which is great, but we clearly miss them. We've had 4-5 chances, and to give him credit Nick Blackman's had a chance well saved too, but they're good players, we've missed them and are delighted they're on the way back. We had to bring in a centre half as Alex Marrow has a bit of a head injury and we wanted some experience in the midfield so we brought in Jim (Goodwin from Huddersfield), who did well. But you can see their goals have come from mistakes at right back where we have Kieran Lee having to play out of position. If you don't make their 'keeper work and then gave it away sloppily it's a problem."
"When you bring players like Pav or Taylor on then you see their quality, they want the ball at their feet and will play it anywhere, to ask young Ryan Brooke to play in that game is tough on him really. But there are positives to take, we looked a real threat for twenty minutes but we have to do it for more than that, we have to get time under the belts of Taylor and Abbott and bring them back in the right way."