Craig Hignett assesses individual displays following Hartlepool United's 3-1 defeat at Dagenham & Redbridge

The Pools boss believed his side were carrying ‘three or four’ players which led to the collective team display being below par.

After looking tight at the back in recent weeks, those early season defensive slip-ups returned at Victoria Road as an error from Ben Killip allowed Angelo Balanta to nip around the goalkeeper double the hosts’ advantage.

“Ben has apologised, if you’re going to come as a keeper whether you get it or not you’ve got to take everyone out which Ben didn’t,” Hignett said.

“To be fair to their lad it was a good finish from a tight angle but that’s cost us today. I wouldn’t want to point the finger at Ben because there was more than him at fault for goals – we didn’t cover people or make it hard for the opposition.”

At the other end, one of Hartlepool’s stand-out players so far this season, Gime Toure, also experienced a frustrating afternoon.

“Gime obviously needs to cut out the inconsistency but that’s why he’s at this level,” Hignett added.

“We’ll accept that Gime is either going to be brilliant or have an off day like here. I’m delighted with what he’s done and one off day in six is fine because of what he can do.

“It’s not about pointing fingers at people it’s a collective thing because we’re a team and we win as a team and lose as a team.

“We’ll look at the video and I’ll show them what they were doing wrong because people need to see themselves doing it so it can be stopped now.”

While Hignett was disappointed with the performance as a whole, he still pointed out a few more positive displays.

“I was pleased with a few of them, Aaron Cunningham stuck to his guns and had a really good game, Michael Raynes was all right,” he continued.

“Gus [Mafuta] broke things up well but was too deep, Nobsa [Liam Noble] was good with the ball, Ryan Donaldson I thought was excellent but we had too many who were below par.”