Match Report: Coventry City 1 Hartlepool 0 (From The Advertiser Series)

Poole insists the pressure is on Oldham

8:00am Monday 18th March 2013 in Sport By Nick Loughlin

Final Score: Coventry City 1 Hartlepool 0

JAMES POOLE insists the pressure is all on Oldham tomorrow night.

In a real pressure game at the foot of League One, Hartlepool United go to the Latics, who are a place and four points in front of Pools.

Victory is essential for John Hughes and his players.

Poole, part of a forward line that has not scored in four games, a run of 360 minutes, admitted: "The pressure is on them being the home team.

"They were beaten on Saturday and apparently the crowd got a bit tense and that's good news for us.

"We're still in with a massive shout of staying up.

"Win on Tuesday and we're moving back in the right direction, whereas others are going the other way.

"It's a big period coming up for us and it goes without saying it will make or break the season.

"Going into Easter we've two hard games but we have to look at every one as winnable.

"We can use the injustice of Saturday to good use on Tuesday.

"It goes back to that siege mentality - if we're not going to get the decisions then we're going to have to fight in other ways."

Pools were incensed by the decision to allow Coventry's goal to stand after they felt Peter Hartley was fouled by scorer Cody McDonald in the build-up.

And Poole, who scored the winning goal at Boundary Park when Pools won 1-0 last season, added: "The longer we kept them at 0-0 the more their fans would have got on their backs.

"We'd started well but we just need that little bit more quality in the final third, myself included.

"Why don't those decisions go our way? That's just the way it goes sometimes.

"But you can only blame the officials to a certain extent because we still had an hour to get back in the game.

"I thought we were the better team and got into some good positions.

"It's just that quality which we need to find because it has been there.

"The last couple of weeks that has deserted us a little bit though.

"All it might take is one moment.

"If one of us can put one in the back of the net then it could spark us off again.''

Oldham are set to appoint Lee Johnson, 31, as their new manager. He is the son of Yeovil boss Gary Johnson and quit playing this year. The Latics have called a press conference for 2pm today and he will be in charge tomorrow.