Hartlepool United manager Dave Challinor on why he was thinking about Spurs v West Ham United during 6-0 FA Cup fourth qualifying round win at Ilkeston Town

A full professional debut goal for Joe Grey as well as strikes from Luke Molyneux, Tom Crawford, Mason Bloomfield, David Parkhouse and Gavan Holohan saw Pools run out as convincing winners at the New Manor Ground.

While Hartlepool kept their third clean sheet in as many games, Challinor felt the game was a more end to end affair than the scoreline suggested.

"I’d say something like 15-6 would have been a fairer reflection of the game because it was so open,” said the Pools boss.

It was an end to end game of football with lots of attempts on goal which I’m not overly happy about in terms of our management of the game.

"In terms of the margin, 6-0 was probably a fair result but I think both teams could have scored more than they did.”

Ultimately it was two goals in the opening eight minutes for Molyneux and Grey that set Pools up for a comfortable afternoon in Derbyshire.

But Challinor was never too complacent despite his side being three goals to the good at half-time.

“It was a dream start but football is a funny game and I was thinking about West Ham being 3-0 down against Spurs the other week and drew 3-3 so you never can count your chickens early,” he added.

“The fourth goal we knew would be the killer. It was similar to the Maidenhead game where after half-time we were looking to kill the game and get the next goal quickly but it went a little bit longer than we wanted before we finally got the fourth.

"We had two chances within the first minute of the second half which if we scored then the game would have been done.

"That’s me being a bit over-analytical with what we’ve done because we’ve got the job done, ticked a lot of boxes and got through to the first round.”

Pools will find out their first draw opponents when the draw is made on Monday, 26 October.

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