Pete Wild has been speaking about his Hartlepool United player talks.

Hartlepool United head coach Pete Wild has revealed the ‘difficult’ conversations he has been having with his Pools squad.

Pools had a free week on the training ground at Maiden Castle this week with no midweek match prior to the Hornchuch game at The Vic on Saturday and it gave Wild the opportunity to speak 1-2-1 with his underperforming players.

Pools have had a desperate start to the season with 9 defeats from the opening 13 league games ahead of the visit of Hornchurch on Saturday to The Vic. Pools were also dumped out of the FA Cup before the first round proper by Marine last weekend, a result that left Wild fuming.

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Wild told BBC Tees Sport: "I've never been bothered about a difficult conversation - I'd rather people understand where I come from. I'm not bothered if they agree with me or not. I'm bothered about them understanding what I think and we've done that. I think if you do that too early you're not going to get a rounded opinion on the players. You have to sort of wait until you've a rounded opinion.

“I feel like I've got that with 90% of the group so it's important you articulate that as quickly as possible to the players and I've done that and now it's an opportunity for them to go and try and show us what they've got. Like I say, there were some good bits from Saturday but not enough good bits and that's why we got there. I think it is consistency of message.

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“I think I said this to you the other week that six to eight weeks you'll start to get a real sort of feel for us. It is going to be a bumpy road, footy is a bumpy road so it's about consistency of message. It's about repeating the same messages until people really understand and have real clarity on that message and I think that's the biggest, most important bit that we've been trying to drive home this week is around our intensity, around what we do with the football and how we go about our business with the football and what we need to win football matches and that's been a massive part of the last few days.”

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