Hartlepool United urged to '˜go again' after Wycombe setback

Pools have just experienced a mixed week with an end to two runs.

They ended a five-and-a -half month wait for an away win last Tuesday when they beat Cambridge United 1-0, but followed that up on Saturday with a 2-0 home defeat to another side with promotion play-off aspirations, Wycombe Wanderers.

It was their first defeat at the Northern Gas & Power Stadium after a sequence of five unbeaten matches.

Pools slipped one place to 21st in the table but with Newport and Leyton Orient both losing at home, the gap with the relegation zone remains at nine points.

Jones was full of praise for the effort shown by his players against the Chairboys and is looking forward to getting back to work with them on the training ground.

“They are a young group of people and I can’t fault them for Saturday,” he said. “They ran themselves into the ground, but there can be more quality? Of course there can.

“We had a lot of tired bodies after Tuesday’s game.

“We’ll put it to bed and we’ll get ready to ago again for the next one.

“We’ll hopefully learn from Saturday, I don’t think it was all bad.”

Jones felt that Pools lacked that bit of “quality” in the final third of the pitch, but says the overall picture remains healthy.

“We got into some great positions,” he explained. “But you need that bit of quality if you want to win.

“we had that one bit of quality the other night at Cambridge and finished it.

“We probably got into better positions on Saturday but we’ve put it over the bar or didn’t get it past the first man.

“We’ve not been able to work on things like that as much because we’ve been concentrating on things to make us more solid, and have a plan to get the ball, keep the ball then open sides up.#

“I just think we when we get into those positions we have to be far more clinical.

“We need more quality and that’s what we’ll work on.

“I’ve said it before we’ve only been here a short space of time but I think you can see the difference in the way we play and what we are trying to do.

“It’s probably six months late from what we are trying to achieve.

“Our priority is to be safe and then build – there will be players who come in and players who will leave.

“I would happily have taken a point from Saturday and I thought we did enough to get that, but we have to be better.

“They are the things we’ll drum into them.

“We have only just started on patterns of play and everything else with that, but I feel there’s more structure to them.

“It’s different to what they had, I’m not saying they didn’t have structure before, all I am saying is that it’s a different way of playing and structure.”

Hartlepool Utd: Fryer, Richardson, Walker, Harrison, Deverdics, Woods, Featherstone, Hawkins (Rooney 72), Thomas, Amond, Alessandra. Subs not used: Bates, Bartlett, Orrell, Martin, Hawkes, Rodney. Booked: Harrison

Wycombe: Blackman, Harriman, Pierre (Muller 32), De Havilland, Jacobson, O’Nien, Gape, Saunders, Weston, Akinfenwa (Cowan-Hall 55), Southwell (Thompson 84). Subs not used: Jombati, Richardson, Freeman, Jakubiak. Sent Off: Cowan-Hall (90). Booked: O’Nien, Cowan-Hall. Goals: Akinfenwa 24, Cowan-Hall 90.

Att: 3,356. Ref: David Webb (County Durham).