Match Report: Hartlepool United 0 Walsall 0

LAST time Hartlepool United and Walsall met, both sides were badly out of form.

The 1-1 November draw at the Bank's Stadium left Pools 19 games without a win, as the Saddlers racked up a 15th winless outing.

Four months on and, while Pools are now equally benign, the opposition have only lost once in 15.

Pools did, during January and February, go seven games without defeat. But since engineering some hope of avoiding the drop down to League Two, they have not scored in six games.

Their last goal was Andy Monkhouse's 90th-minute third against Crewe on February 26.

They've hardly even looked like scoring. And so today, with six games to go, they now lie at the foot of the table, with the lowest goal tally - just 33 from 40 games - in the Football League.

While manager John Hughes banged the drum and spoke of winning the last six games to close the six-point gap between themselves and safety, the reality is that Pools could be relegated when they go to Stevenage on Easter Monday.

Most have resigned themselves to the drop. Nothing on show at Victoria Park on Saturday indicated otherwise.

The crowd dropped to a sub-3000 level. Quite what offer the club can come up with to attract fans back next season is open to suggestion.

After offering cracking season ticket deals of just £100 then £155 for the last two seasons, it's debatable if anyone has had value for money even at those prices.

Pools have drawn four of their last six home games 0-0. This performance was as brutal as the weather.

It's a lazy cliche that Victoria Park is the windiest and coldest ground in the land, but on Saturday that statement blew true.

In terms of solidity and standing firm, there was a reaction to last Tuesday's humbling at Oldham.

Pools sniffed out any threat offered by the Saddlers, who were without 19-goal top scorer Will Grigg, injured on international service with Northern Ireland last week.

At the other end, the visiting defenders stuck to their job without much fuss.

"Looking at the big picture, I know where I am going, I know what needs doing at the club, I see the situation,'' reflected Hughes.

"I'm not going to shout it out, but I work very closely with the chairman and chief executive and hopefully we can go and get one or two in to help the boys out.

"And hopefully it's still in this division. But where are the strikers? The goalscorers?

"How much would teams want for a goalscorer? You need to go and dig something out. It's not a negative, but that inspires me.

Simon Walton reacts after shooting wide

"There will be players to come in and do a job. You will never get a Xabi Alonso scoring loads, but the job he does for his club is fantastic in the bigger picture.

"Bring players in who can fit into a system of play and then score goals.''

That system did work for Pools in February. With Charlie Wyke mobile and leading the line, he had plenty of support as Jon Franks and James Poole buzzed around him.

But Wyke's levels have dipped, Poole is injured and Franks has been in and out of games.

How much that run took out of the youthful front three, both mentally and physically, is there to see now.

Hughes added, while hinting at an all-out attacking approach on Good Friday: "Our centre-halves were dominant again, but we needed a wee bit more flair in ball retention overall. Good players influence a game and make it happen.

"It's easy to kick it away 40 yards and hope, you need to make it happen.

"Big Stevie is 35, two games in a week and Charlie has been suffering from a wee groin problem. What we have is Charlie, Stevie, Monks, Luke, Franksy. Four up front, which we might do, then it's four out of five and then look at Sweeney coming from deep.

"These boys, I'd like to think, have a real desire. We are down there for a reason, we've not won enough games. But we can win the next six, show character, do something out of the ordinary.

"I'm talking and we have to do something special, a spark, but we can do it. You have to want to go and do it, be inspired to do it. We see how it goes.

"The only way is to practise to do it and you practise to do it on the training ground.

"Sometimes you see a player do something on the pitch and you turn to the dug out and ask the boys if they would do that on the training pitch. They all say no, they wouldn't, but they would get the ball down, take a touch, pass it, get it back.

"In the situation we are in, that happens. But have belief in your ability.''