Hartlepool United's spread of goals in pre-season is satisfying manager Craig Hignett

United have netted 21 times in their six pre-season games so far with an impressive 11 different scorers across the team.

Of those 21 goals, 15 have been netted by midfield players with Liam Noble and Luke Molyneux both bagging four each and new signing Jason Kennedy scoring three times. Luke Williams, Josh Hawkes, Gavan Holohan and trialist Liam Smith also found the net from the middle of the park in the friendly matches.

Hartlepool’s attacking style of play has lent itself well to midfielders popping up around the edge of the box and finding the net.

Nine of the 15 midfield goals have come from the edge of the penalty area with a further four being headers and only two being traditional close range ‘striker’s’ finishes.

While these stats could raise questions of United’s front line, Hignett is satisfied with the healthy spread of different scorers.

“I think it is a big positive for us,” he said.

“Our strikers are still scoring. Luke James has scored a couple in pre-season, Nicke Kabamba’s got a couple and so has Gime Toure - Niko (Muir) is the only one who hasn’t got off the mark yet.

“We’re capable of scoring, we need to score a lot of goals, that’s what you have to do in this league. But I think we’ve got a really good spread of goals throughout the team which is a positive for me.”