Dave Challinor discusses the 'fine margins' in the National League after watching Hartlepool United pick up two points from a possible nine

In that time, Pools have let 2-0 leads slip twice away to both Notts County and most recently Ebbsfleet United.

And while new manager Dave Challinor wants to address things quickly, he admits it may not be an instant fix.

“A lot of that has been potentially around mentality more than anything else and that’s something that you can’t change overnight,” he said.

“That’s happened three times this season to us where we’ve thrown away two goal leads. I was on the flip side of that earlier in the season when I was at Fylde when it was 2-0 then 2-2 late on.

“It’s something that shows the fine margins in football and we were all disappointed after the Ebbsfleet game because of the result but not the performance because the performance was generally fantastic.

“We just needed that third goal because they scored two out of nothing and a third would have killed it.”

United currently sit five points outside of the play-off places ahead of Saturday’s match at home to Boreham Wood.

“The league is really close and if you look at the way the games have gone, it’s indicative of the league because we could quite easily be sat here with seven points from our last three games,” Challinor added.

“There’s a good argument that we didn’t deserve to beat Solihull, the first 20-minutes was positive but got pinned back after that and once they got the goal we came back into it, we could have sneaked a draw there.

“The two away games we’ve put in two really good performances and we definitely should have won one of the games if not both.

“That’s the nature of the league and the margins are ridiculously fine and it’s the teams who can make sure they win when they play well and still get something more often than not even when they haven’t played well, that will finish at the top end of the table.

“Hopefully in time we can be one of those teams and get ourselves up there competing.”