Mick Wadsworth keeps faith with winners

Sep 4 2010 by James Hunter, The Journal

HARTLEPOOL return to league action this lunchtime with Mick Wadsworth challenging his side to repeat their storming midweek cup response to last weekend’s stinging defeat against Sheffield Wednesday.

Pool were hammered 5-0 at home in the league by the Owls, but the same starting line-up bounced back on Tuesday night with a 4-0 win over League Two Northampton at the Vic in the first round of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.

Today they take on MK Dons in front of the Sky TV cameras at stadiummk, and caretaker manager Wadsworth intends to give the same 11 players the chance to show their cup win was no flash-in-the-pan.

Wadsworth said: “I spoke to our club captain Ritchie Humphreys, Gary Walsh the goalkeeping coach and Mickey Barron the youth coach – they are all helping me – and asked what they would want had they been playing on Saturday against Sheffield.

“To a man, they all said they would have wanted to play as soon as possible. I’d already got in my mind that I was going to stick with the same team in the cup, but that confirmed it.

“Normally, I would have liked to have made three, four or five changes but I felt it would have been unfair for someone to miss out because it might have looked like they were a scapegoat.

“It could have backfired, if we’d had a poor game against Northampton, but instead it worked out well.

“The players were fantastic on Tuesday night and it was a great response. And if possible, we will play the same team on Saturday because – apart from last Saturday – they have done very well, particularly in away games. MK Dons are a very good home team and have been for some time.