Hartlepool United assistant head coach Antony Sweeney says Joe Grey has become a "massive player" for Pools

The 20-year-old, who has already played more than 100 games for Pools, finished the season with a flourish, bagging seven goals in his last 13 games.

The versatile forward, who has mainly been deployed on the right since Kevin Phillips took over in January, had always shown plenty of promise but had never found the net on a regular basis until this season.

Grey credits regular starts as being behind his prolific run but it's also become apparent that the attacker is finding himself in and around the box more often.

At times, his versatility has been his undoing and Grey has played pretty much everywhere across the front line.

One of his biggest assets, his pace, is the biggest threat to opponents when he can get in behind defences, something he has done much more often in recent weeks.

And Sweeney, no stranger to finding the net himself having scored well over 50 goals for Pools, feels spending more time in the right areas has been essential to Grey's recent success.

"Joe's had an accelerated start to his career, he was thrown in quite early and probably played more games than he would have imagined for his age," he said.

"Once you do start playing those games, you get used to it, and when it's taken away from you, it doesn't matter whether you're 19, 20 or 35, it's tough to take.

"In my opinion, and I've told Joe this as well, over the last couple of months he's got back to being the type of forward he should be - a threat, chasing lost causes, keeping defenders on their toes.

"I think in the early part of the season he was probably coming towards the ball a little bit too much, trying to link the play, trying to be more like a number 10.

"We want him on the back line, threatening space in behind, stretching the game for us.

"When he does that, he is a real, real threat.

"Credit to him, because when you're not playing and things are going against you, it would be quite easy to let that season peter out.

"He's got himself back in the team. Those shirts have to be earned, you don't just give starts away.

"He's earned the starts, he's got back in the team and he's scored a lot of goals.

"He's become a massive player for us."