HARTLEPOOL United's play-off ambitions are approaching make or break time.

After successive away defeats in the last seven days, Pool are back on home soil when they entertain Lincoln tonight and Bristol Rovers on Saturday.

With ten games to go, Pool must win at least six to secure a top-seven spot. They currently lie 11th on 50 points, four places and five points outside the play-off zone.

Pool's home form of late has been the mainstay of their challenge, scoring 22 times in their last five Victoria Park outings.

And skipper Micky Barron last night issued a passionate rallying call to his charges.

"Two wins will put us right back in there,'' he insisted. "One of the lads said on Saturday that if we had played Kidderminster at home we would have scored four or five - but we could have had four or five away from home.

"We just seem to get the jitters a bit and let them back into the game.

"We've got two home games and we are still in with a shout. Everyone is still positive about our chances. Words were said in the changing room on Saturday and people weren't happy about things, but we have got to stick together.

"We've got to win all our home games and start to pick up some points away from home.

"We had plenty of chances, but if we had got another goal when we were one-up I'm sure we would have gone on to win.

"We should have been more professional and wrapped the game up when we had the chance.

"I think if you looked at the whole game we didn't do too badly, but we have to take the positives out of it like we always do.

"At Cheltenham we played a lot of football but didn't get many chances, on Saturday we could have scored five in the first-half.''

Turner, who ripped into his players on Saturday, said: "The only positive thing we could take from Saturday is that we scored two goals away from home.

"We've come from the bottom of the League, got ourselves into a position where we could be challenging for the play-offs and the last two games have knocked us back.

"Now we need to take six points this week. We can do that, I'm certain about it. At home people have seen us create 12 or 13 chances.

"But away from home we are not punishing teams like we should.

"We lost to Kidderminster on Saturday, but we have ten games left and I am confident we will finish above them.

"If we had won the two games last week we could still have missed out on the play-offs. There are 30 points to go for, but we can't keep tossing goals in like we did on Saturday.''

Leading scorer Gordon Watson will start tonight after a 30-minute substitute outing on Saturday, with Kevin Henderson likely to drop down to the bench.

Turner was last night reported to be in talks with striker Eifion Williams over a possible move to Pool.

Torquay manager Roy McFarland claimed: "Eifion is travelling up today and I believe he will talk to them tomorrow morning.''

Williams was not included in the 16 on duty for Torquay at the weekend.

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