Jeff Stelling reacts to sacking of Pools manager Craig Harrison

The TV star says Hartlepool United should approach ex-saviour Ronnie Moore following the sacking of manager Craig Harrison today.

The Soccer Saturday host and honorary club president says he does not think Pools are in a position to appoint a new manager given the current uncertainty over the club’s long-term future.

Matthew Bates and Paul Jenkins are to take charge of training and the team for Saturday’s home game with Ebbsfleet United.

But the club says it has already started the process to find a new manager.

Reacting to the news of Harrison’s departure, Jeff the Mail: “I feel very sorry for him.

“I think he is a genuinely good man but at the end of the day on the field somehow we have got to get enough results to make sure we are not in that bottom four regardless of what happens off the field.

“It has come at a time when everything that’s been going on around him off field must have been a massive distraction, and the fact he has lost players here, there and everywhere.”

Regarding any future appointment, Jeff added: “I just don’t think we are in a situation where we would get anybody.

“Who wants to come to take a job where the future of the club might not have more than a month to go?”

Money totalling £85,000 raised by fans helped to make sure February’s home games can be played, but the future is less certain because of Pools’ fiancial worries.

“If I was them I would go cap in hand to Ronnie Moore and say ‘come and use your experience’ to help Matty Bates.

“He seems a blindingly obvious choice to me.”

Ex-manager Moore, who pulled off The Great Escape in 2015 by saving Pools from relegation against the odds, recently offered to help Pools who have only won once since November.

On Saturday, Pools’ chief executive Pam Duxbury said she was hopeful a takeover of the club could be completed “very soon”.

Click here to see who the bookies think have the best chance of being named Pools’ new manager.