Dave Challinor reveals his big worry with Hartlepool United players following 3-0 Woking defeat

Hartlepool United manager Dave Challinor has given an honest assessment of his players following the 3-0 defeat at Woking.
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Pools dropped to 11th in the National League table following their sixth defeat in their last 10 games in all competitions.

After the game, Challinor hit out at his players’ performance and lack of consistency as they failed to build on a promising midweek win over King’s Lynn Town.

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The Pools boss was visibly angry following the full-time whistle at Woking, but he was disappointed his players didn’t have the same level of emotional response.

Hartlepool manager, Dave Challinor (Credit: Mark Fletcher | MI News)Hartlepool manager, Dave Challinor (Credit: Mark Fletcher | MI News)
Hartlepool manager, Dave Challinor (Credit: Mark Fletcher | MI News)

“They’re certainly not as angry as I am and perhaps that says quite a bit,” Challinor said.

“You have to maintain your discipline while on the pitch and I’m at a point where I’ve got to worry if it hurts me more than it hurts them.

"I’ll back them when they do well but I won’t back them after that, I’m not stupid. We’ll work all week at what we do, what happened there will be ironed out because it’s not good enough and we definitely will get a reaction.

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"To a certain degree we need to be pointing fingers because there needs to be some accountability for that.

There’s been no real accountability on the pitch or in the dressing room. They should be tearing shreds into each other in there but they’re not.

"We can’t just crack on and not worry about it but what happened at Woking wasn’t anything we didn’t expect from them.

"I won’t be doing anyone any favours if I say ‘don’t worry about it, we move on to the next game’ because some of them have aspirations and ideas that they can play higher than this level but that performance tells me that they haven’t got a chance, not a prayer.

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"If they just want to go through the motions and not improve and not better themselves then I wouldn’t be doing my job and wouldn’t be doing them justice.

"They will get better and they will improve from it and that will require a lot of hard work and heartache.”

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