The quintessential game of two halves IMO.
I thought we were terrible in the first half. Sloppy, slow and uninspired. Hall was one of the few to actually look like a L1 player - Sykes did OK and Baptiste wasn't awful but generally I was wondering exactly what I was watching. Difficult to tell who were the conference team.
Second half was as different as could be. We were quicker to the ball, quicker to move it on, looking to go forwards with the ball rather than give the responsibility to a team mate. Whatever Robinson said at half time, please can he say it before kickoff next weekend! Some excellent goals, well worked chances and a couple of great individual performances made us pretty irresistible.
However, I thought Fosu was consistently pretty average (despite his goal). He really needs to take a player on sometimes when one on one rather than turning back or turning around in little circles and he was too selfish (or unaware of where his team mates were) many times. I also thought Mackie was a bit of a waste of space. He won't actually ever challenge for a wall in the air, just being content to jump into his man, and does not look likely to score - I know that's never been his strength, but I really think we need someone on the pitch to put the ball in the net. Or is that old-fashioned? Agyei looked a far better bet when he came on and I'd like Robinson to give him a run out playing centrally sometime soon. Lopez also looked lively - one to watch.
I thought Hartlepool played the game the right way, trying to play football properly rather than lumping the ball forward or hacking our players down all the time - the score flattered us a bit. And well done to a decent amount of their supporters for making the long trip and making a decent noise - they made more, more consistently than the Man City lot the other week, and well done to them for joining in with the prematch and 77th minute applause - classy. Good luck to Hartlepool and their support for the rest of the season.
The ref was (as seems so more often than not) pretty poor. Indecisive, inconsistent and missed quite a lot.
Still, job done - let's hope for a decent draw on Monday.