Hartlepool United manager Dave Challinor confirms 'definite' loan signing ahead of Thursday's registration deadline

Manager Dave Challinor has confirmed that Pools are set to announce a new loan arrival at Victoria Park for the final months of the National League season.

National League sides have until Thursday, March 25 to register players for the remainder of the season with Pools bringing in at least one player before then.

“We will definitely have one in, if we need to get more in then we will do that,” Challinor told The Mail. “We’ve got two games before the deadline and things could change quickly and we have to be reactive – one will definitely be a loan.

“The deadline is on Thursday and we’ve got to cover bases in terms of injuries or eventualities.

"It’s more important this season with the season going for another two months after the deadline whereas usually it’s just one. This year it’s imperative that we cover different options.

"We want to get another forward player in and cover in different areas. We need cover we can rely on and the left-back area is one where we don’t have natural cover."

Pools currently have five loan players signed up in Lewis Cass, Tom White, Luke Armstrong, Jake Cooper and Henrich Ravas. Confirmation of a sixth loanee would force Challinor to leave one of those players out of his matchday squad.

“At the moment, we’ve got five loans in and four of them are in the matchday squad,” he added. “From my perspective, I can only name five players in the matchday squad so straight away if we brought another loan player in then five could play.

"Cass is suspended and Henrich is not involved but it gives us no advantage to bring in two loan players.

"If we loaned a left-back player in for example then all of a sudden we’d have to drop another of our loan players to accommodate that so it just becomes counter-productive.

"We’ll look to get something permanent or potentially look at what people’s contracts are with their parent clubs and getting something sorted there to give us more options.”

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