Hartlepool United v Rochdale: Change in the air for Pools as League Two's relegated duo go head-to-head

Hartlepool’s stay of execution was a week longer than Rochdale’s, but, inevitably, both clubs fell into the non-league abyss – Pools for a second time and Rochdale for a first.

For Hartlepool, they knew what was coming. For Rochdale, the novelty has already worn off.

After the opening three months of the new season, both teams have already discovered this will be no cake-walk back to the promised land of the Football League, with both clubs either side of the top and bottom halves of the league table from their first 17 games.

With Chesterfield stretching their legs out in front at the top of the division it increasingly looks as though seventh will be the magic number as far as both teams’ aim will go to give them a shot at play-off glory.

For Hartlepool that will elicit the fondest of memories. But with five points the difference between John Askey’s side and those elusive top seven spots, there is already work to do.

The opening month of the campaign offered hope to Hartlepool supporters this season could be a success. Just two wins in their last 11 games in all competitions has done more than dampen the mood.

Pools find themselves in a tailspin towards mediocrity, with the pressure beginning to grow, with Rochdale on a similar trajectory having themselves only won two of their last 11 games in all competitions.

Something, it would suggest, has got to give when the two sides meet one another this afternoon.

"It’s never nice when two clubs who are traditionally league clubs find themselves in this league,” Askey told BBC Radio Tees.

"But that’s the way of football, and really this league is like the fifth league.

"I remember years ago when Rochdale and so on were always seeking re-election. The fact they stayed in league football was probably down to where they were situated geographically more than anything, so some of these clubs would have fallen out of league football many times.

"But now it’s automatic and we have to deal with it, accept it, and try to move on as a club when these things happen.”

Pools return to home soil having lost back-to-back games on the road, both by the same 2-1 scoreline.

At Aldershot they contrived to throw three points away in less than a minute. At Halifax Askey lamented his side's start to the second half as defensive issues remained the talking point of Hartlepool’s season.

"It’s a little bit sombre, as you’d expect,” Askey said of the mood around the club’s Maiden Castle training base following that defeat in West Yorkshire.

"My job is to pick the players up and get them going for Saturday. It’s a home game which is always nice. We’ve got to look forward to it.

"Rochdale are in a similar situation as ourselves, I suppose the same sort of thing has happened to them as has happened to us. So it's an important game, a big game for us. We’ve got to look at Rochdale and how they play and how we play and try and change one or two things.”

Quite what those changes will look like remain open for debate, but having seen 17 games of this National League campaign, Askey appears to have reached his tipping point.

Hartlepool face a two week break following the full-time whistle this afternoon, with no game in the FA Cup next weekend after being dumped out of the competition by Chester in the fourth qualifying round.

Perhaps that break will prove beneficial to Askey and his players.

"It gives us a chance to regroup and see where we are and possibly look to bring one or two players in,” said Askey.

"But we’ll see what happens on Saturday and that will dictate whether it’s a good thing or not,”

Further reinforcements would be welcome, but there are no guarantees.

Hartlepool’s squad depth struggles have been well documented since the opening month of the season when Dan Dodds and Anthony Mancini were hit with severe injuries, before Callum Cooke joined them in the treatment room – how different things might have been with them?

But while Askey acknowledges the impact of that missing trio, the Hartlepool boss has made no bones about the fact his side should still be doing better than what we are seeing.

"I think with any club if you lose possibly your best three players it’s going to affect you, and the smaller the club is it’s going to affect you even more and that’s not an excuse, that’s just a fact,” he said.

"But what I’ve been disappointed with is we could have won more games than what we have.

"You always look at yourself and whether you could have done something different, but there's no reason we can’t win games.

"I know those three players were the icing on the cake, and we probably would have been challenging at the top. We’re not challenging at the top but we can still do better.

"The amount of goals we concede is ridiculous and every week it seems to be the same, like on Tuesday night it was two goals from two set pieces. We know the reason why they went in. We work on it in training, we go through it, but if people don’t do their job properly then it doesn’t matter how you set up.

"I don't think there’s been a game we’ve played where anybody has really opened us up and you come away from a game thinking ‘how have we lost that? How have we conceded goals from those positions?’ It’s baffling, and it keeps happening. So something’s not right. But it’s very difficult to pinpoint.”