Hartlepool United midfielder admits 'we were ready for a change' following the sacking of ex-Celtic and Hearts player as boss

Hartley was dismissed following the 2-0 defeat at Sutton United having won just one of his 11 games in charge in all competitions with the club currently bottom of the League Two table.

The onus now lies on Keith Curle, who was appointed as interim manager in place of Hartley, to pick up the pieces and try and resurrect a season which is already in desperate danger of escaping Pools.

And midfielder Shelton admits he was not surprised to see Hartley’s time come to an end, although he accepts the blame should not all lie at his door.

“I’m not really [surprised],” said Shelton following the goalless draw with Gillingham.

“Personally it was frustrating. But for all the lads it’s frustrating not winning games. You can’t put that down to just the manager. We’re a group of players, staff and a team.

“You can’t just say it was the manager's fault but, at the end of the day, it lies on the manager's head. He wasn’t winning games. We weren’t winning games, so there’s got to be a change and it was probably the final straw.

“I think we were ready for a change and we’re looking forward to the future now.”

Shelton, who struggled to force his way into Hartley’s plans, has revealed the players held ‘clear the air talks’ following the dismissal of the Scotsman ahead of their Papa Johns Trophy tie at League One side Morecambe last week.

The conversation, in which new interim boss Curle was present, was used as a tool to try and identify what has gone wrong for Pools to derail their season before it has even begun, with Shelton admitting it is up to the players now to put things right as we head towards the quarter-way mark of the season.

“He came to the hotel before the game [at Morecambe] and spoke to us for 20 minutes. We aired out where we thought it had gone wrong at the start of the season because not winning a game this far in is not good enough at any level and we know that as players,” explained Shelton.

“We’ve tried to come up with where we’ve gone wrong, why we’ve gone wrong, why we’ve been on the wrong end of results and just aired it out.

“It’s very important [to do that]. We’re a group of professionals at the end of the day. We have a lot of responsibility for the town and for the football club. We know how much this means to people.

“Everyone wants to pull in the right direction which is winning games of football and when you’re not winning games of football you have to start looking at each other and start asking questions of each other about why.

“You can look at the manager and the style of play, characters, you can look at everything, but, at the end of the day, you’ve just got to look at yourself and see what you’re doing and what you can do to improve whether you’re playing or not playing.”