AFTER being issued with a relegation warning from every fan he has met during the last six weeks, Chris Turner has told his Hartlepool United players to prove the pessimists wrong.

Pools begin their third successive season in League One away at Rochdale this afternoon, with pundits and supporters all pointing to the bottom four as a realistic finish for the men from Victoria Park.

After a summer of rumours, in which takeover and investment talk has floated around the seaside town, in many respects Turner will be relieved for the football to start again.

Hartlepool will include new signings Evan Horwood and Paul Murray at Spotland today, with Uruguayan Fabian Yantorno expected to follow next week. Turner and his new assistant, Mick Wadsworth, are using the cynics to fire up the members of his squad.

“We are tipped for relegation by every fan I have spoken to, every pundit,” he said.

“It’s my job, and Mick Wadsworth’s job, to make sure we are in there fighting in every game we play. We are realists, we have been involved in football for 30-odd years.

“You know when you go into a season, whether it’s full of optimism, negativity, is it tough times ahead, are you confident? We are just trying to get the players together, telling them that this is what the people are saying.

“There’s nothing wrong with that mentality, it’s just that we have to get it into the lads that this is what we have to go into the season with.

“The lads can’t be thinking that it’s going to be tough. We have to lift them and mould them to ensure they are playing to the best of their ability.

“If it’s in their minds that they will be relegated then it will be difficult. We have to get them organised, work hard and make it difficult for opponents.”

With Yantorno yet to receive the clearance to complete his move, Turner has to name a team to face Rochdale from a squad without a new striker to replace Roy O’- Donovan, who is now at Coventry after his loan stint.

Former Manchester City striker Jon Macken was a possibility, but Turner is having to rely on the forwards he has at his disposal and hopes to avoid a similar ending to the last two years, when relegation was avoided on the last day.

With that, and a lack of new faces in his squad, in mind, Turner finds it difficult to outline specific targets for his team over the next nine months.

“Some fans aren’t happy when we say we want to stay in League One, they don’t think that is good enough for them,” he said.

“I know what progress will be with this squad of players, others might have a different opinion. The obvious one is to get in the top eight, but I can reel off a list of clubs who will be in the top eight.

“Progress for a club like Hartlepool is playing League One football, I’m not being negative. The year we got to the play-off final, which is now six years ago, there weren’t the likes of Leeds, Southampton and Charlton in there with money flying around.

“Progress for me is keeping Hartlepool United in League One.

How far we can go after that then I don’t know.

“There will be weeks when these players let the fans down, but when it comes down to the crunch, like last season, these boys pull out a performance against all of the odds.

“There’s a siege mentality, that’s what these lads are like here.”