THIRD bottom in League Two and with a vital run of fixtures ahead, the season starts now for Hartlepool United.

Today’s trip to Notts County is followed by three crucial home games in the space of seven days as Stevenage, Yeovil and Notts visit Victoria Park.

A healty points return is essential to go some way to avoiding an edgy and unwelcome end of season run in.

Boss Ronnie Moore is maintaining his positive outlook, despite last weekend’s home disappointment against Exeter.

The season starts here? Moore answered: "We thought that Saturday - we had five home games coming up, one less now.

"But we still have the opportunity to put things right.

"We have new blood in, it's now about picking the right system and side and that's down to me.

"Hopefully we can then go and get the results people want.

"No-one wants to be where we are, there is nothing worse than having to look over your shoulder

"But if you show any fear then you are going to be in trouble.

"You have to go out and play.

"Our supporters? If they see a shift going in from the players, they won't boo us off.

"Once we have that togetherness, we shouldn't have any fears."

He added: "We know those three home games are massive, though we'll be looking to take something from Saturday.

"We were close our last away game to a victory, if we'd got them extra two points and we'd be sitting a lot nicer.

"I'm not saying it would be a brilliant position but we'd be sitting a bit better than we are now

"Getting the win is important, how you get it is not important.

"It's a massive ten days with those three games to come against teams in and around where we are."

Pools have been unable to string a sequence of positive results together. At the start of the season they won four in a row, but since then they’ve struggled for consistency.

Last season’s Great Escape was supposed to herald a turnaround in fortunes, but it hasn’t quite worked out like that.

Moore admitted: “Do we feel pressure? What is pressure? Your whole life is about pressure and it’s for wimps. Play football, go out there and enjoy it.

“It’s people’s livelihoods and supporters who have been watching their team for a long, long time. It’s about getting together, taking chances. We can’t do anything about other teams winning, but we have games in hand. They only mean something if we are winning them.

“It’s tough, but we have a decent squad here now and we should not fear anyone. We need a little break, we need someone to finish and put the ball in the net.

“Supporters want to see us win, and play well. They will get behind us if we give our all.

“But no-one feels it more than me – I pick the side, I pick the players and the formation. Come five o’clock it’s easy to look back and say we should have done this or that in hindsight.’’

Like Pools, today’s opponents revamped their squad in the summer, but, like Pools, it hasn’t quite worked out.

While Pools did eventually see off Salford City in the FA Cup, Notts lost to the Evo-Stik League side. They recently changed manager and Moore said: "A tough trip. Great place Notts County, I love going there, the atmosphere's brilliant, pitch is massive.

"They set up like us, 4-4-2-ish, it will be a wide open game with nice areas for the wide men.

"They have good experience up top.

"It's not like the team Gary Neville was looking at the other day, we're not facing Barcelona and Suarez are we?

"That's no disrespect to Notts County, we have to go there with the winning mentality that we can win this game.

"On our day we can be as good as anyone.’’

And he added: "It's all about the result isn't it?

"Some of the games last season were not pretty, I'm not going to try to kid people and say it was like Real Madrid.

"We had to scrap and whatever.

"This season I think we have a better team, but at the moment we have to go and prove it.

"We have to get results and how we get results does not matter at this moment.

"I'd love to play like Barcelona but if we have to play like the Dog & Duck then we'll have to play like the Dog & Duck until we get it right."

Pools have reduced ticket prices for next week’s two home games with Stevenage and Yeovi.

Prices will now be £12 for adults and £6 for concessions.

“We know that three home games in a week is a big outlay for pay-on-the-day supporters,” explained chief executive Russ Green. “Our fans have stuck with us through some testing times and we want to make sure we reward them for that loyalty and help them out during busy periods like this. Hopefully it means that as many fans as possible can come and support the lads in two crucial fixtures.’’