Hartlepool United boss feels uncertainty off the pitch hampering Pools following 3-0 thrashing at Boreham Wood

While it wasn't long ago that Pools were harbouring hopes of stealing into the National League play-off places, dreams of finishing in the top seven now feel like a distant and faintly ridiculous memory after a bruising few weeks continued in Hertfordshire.

Having won three games in succession for the first time since August, Pools have now failed to win any of their previous four matches, shipping seven goals at Wealdstone, drawing 0-0 with both Scunthorpe and Rochdale over the Easter weekend before being dismantled by Boreham Wood.

The statistics make for grim reading. With their once formidable goals against column steadily worsening, Pools have now failed to score in four successive matches and have drawn a blank in 16 of their 46 games this term; big questions must now be asked and it's not clear whether Featherstone has the answers.

Pools made the long trip to Meadow Lane well aware that Saturday's game was, to all intents and purposes, a dead rubber in a purely footballing sense.

After all, the impressive Wood, who only won promotion from the National League South last season, had already secured their place in this year's play-offs while Pools were coming to terms with the prospect of a fourth successive season in the National League following a dramatic recent dip in form.

Yet there are plenty of Pools players who still have work to do if they're to secure a contract either at Victoria Park or elsewhere over the summer, while Featherstone is desperately trying to prove to new owner Landon Smith that he's the right man to lead the team beyond this season.

Increasingly, however, Featherstone's hopes of being awarded a new deal look to be slipping through his fingers after Pools were on the wrong end of another heavy defeat at the hands of the well-oiled Wood.

Although Charlie Caton made a welcome return to the starting XI, Pools were set up to try and stay in the game rather than take the contest to their hosts and Featherstone's side had to survive wave after wave of Wood pressure in the first half.

Having held out until the break, Pools were undone by a second half hat-trick from the prolific Matt Rush, who has new scored 28 goals this term; strikingly, the Wood frontman alone has scored more than half as many goals as the entire Pools team, who have managed a meagre 47 and are among the division's least prolific outfits.

In truth, passive, ponderous and pedestrian Pools could have had few complaints at being well-beaten in Hertfordshire and it's unclear where Featherstone and his side go from here with three games still to go this season.

Whatever the case, it feels as though last month's 7-0 mauling against Wealdstone is still looming large over Pools, while the lack of fight, desire and determination on display in recent weeks represents a significant concern for the future.

Pools now limp towards the end of another turbulent campaign before a huge summer in which Smith will surely need to make significant changes on and off the pitch as well as countless big decisions; to move forward, Hartlepool United simply have to rediscover their identity.

"We came up against a really good side, there's a reason they're right up there," Featherstone told BBC Radio Tees Sport.

"From our point of view, I thought we were really poor in possession all afternoon; I don't know why, I don't know how.

"It's a lovely pitch, a lovely surface, and we tried to get as many technical players on the pitch as possible from the off, we felt we could hurt them on the break when we turned the ball over.

"That didn't materialise today, the players that I put my faith in today weren't good enough in terms of in possession.

"It was a bad day, all I can say again is sorry to the fans who travelled; that's four games now we haven't scored in.

"It's a tough place to be at the minute, there's a lot of uncertainty around the place; no one knows their positions, there's a lot of people out of contract and you're probably seeing that at the minute in terms of the performance.

"We set up a bit deeper, but to counter and be a threat in the first half; we weren't just planning on sitting back.

"What we weren't good enough at in the first half was, when we turned over the ball, we lacked the quality; we've got good footballers on that pitch who weren't capable today, for some reason, of finding another player in orange.

"We felt like, because they (Boreham Wood) are so expansive, we felt like we could hurt them on the break when we turned the ball over. We weren't good enough in possession today, it's as simple as that.

"It (last month's 7-0 defeat to Wealdstone), has probably been a lot more damaging than I thought - in possession, that is. We look scared.

"I chose a team there that was capable of being good in possession and it didn't show today; you'd have to ask them (the players).

"There's no pressure from me and Gary (Liddle, assistant manager), we're going to get mistakes at the level we're at; you get mistakes at the very top.

"Being scared to do things - just the lack of quality at the minute - is alarming, especially from a group that I know are capable of doing good things.

"There's a lot of uncertainty surrounding everything at the football club and it's probably not helping; a lot of people want answers, and we can't really give them at the minute.

"It's probably a combination of a lot of things, a lack of confidence, the uncertainty, the insecurity about being in a job next year.

"There's loads of factors and we're probably seeing it in performances at the minute.

"There are people in place now to make those decisions and I'm sure there's a process in place.

"From a personal point of view and from the point of view of the players, the sooner we make these decisions, the better. We can move on and plan for next season.

"At the minute there's just a lot of question marks and a lot of uncertainty."

Your next Hartlepool United read: Woeful Pools thrashed by ruthless Wood as Rush fires hat-trick