Hartlepool United's struggles in front of goal this season: Where does the blame lie and what can be done about it

The statistics make for grim reading. Saturday's 3-0 defeat to relegation-threatened Aldershot Town - a Shots outfit who arrived in the North East with one of the worst defensive records in the division - was the 10th time in 30 league games Pools have failed to score this season, while Nicky Featerstone's side are without a first half home goal since November 29.

Pools, who have managed a meagre 32 goals in 30 league games so far this term, rank among the National League's lowest scorers while league leaders York, who have found the net a remarkable 76 times in 29 matches, have bagged more than twice as many goals as Featherstone's side. Indeed, the National League's leading scorer, Minstermen attacker Ollie Pearce, has scored just six fewer goals than the entire Pools squad this season, notching an impressive 26 times in 29 matches.

Having lost the prolific Mani Dieseruvwe, who scored 43 goals in 89 games at Victoria Park, to title-chasing Rochdale over the summer, Pools turned to Alex Reid, fresh from finding the net 17 times in 43 matches for strugglers Wealdstone last term, and experienced striker Danny Johnson in a bid to fill the departing talisman's considerable boots.

While Reid has made a reasonable enough start to life in the North East, scoring seven goals in 25 appearances despite being generally starved of service, Johnson has endured a torrid first few months at Victoria Park and is without a goal in any of his first 29 Pools outings. True, Pools fans would like far more from their frontmen - whereas Dieseruvwe was almost universally well-regarded, Reid seems to divide opinion on the terraces while Johnson has been heavily criticised throughout the campaign - it's increasingly clear that Hartlepool United's problems in front of goal are far more complex and deep-rooted than a simple case of misfiring strikers. So, where have things gone so wrong and who is to blame?

As well as the high profile departure of Dieseruvwe over the summer, Pools also said goodbye to long-serving attacker Joe Grey and, of course, outstanding West Brom loanee Reyes Cleary. While Grey was never the most prolific at Victoria Park, scoring 24 goals in 155 matches, his movement, hard work and willingness to run off the shoulder of defenders did a lot to stretch opposition back lines and open up space for others.

Cleary, who scored six goals and provided seven assists in 20 games despite spending large parts of his loan spell operating at wing-back, was capable of producing a moment of magic and it will come as no huge surprise to Pools fans who watched him last season that Barnsley, who snapped him up in the wake of his West Brom departure over the summer, now value the youngster at £5 million. Even the mercurial Anthony Mancini, despite his incessant and well-documented injury issues, was able to create something out of nothing for his side.

The obvious question is whether or not Pools have done enough to replace the likes of Dieseruvwe, Grey and Cleary. Certainly, most fans will likely feel that, based on the first half of the season, the signings of Reid and Johnson would have to rank as a downgrade on Dieseruvwe. Even so, it's worth remembering that Reid has not been helped by his side's tendency to prioritise pragmatism over potency as well as both Simon Grayson and Nicky Featherstone's seeming reluctance to be too aggressive when it comes to tactics and team selection.

For all Johnson hasn't covered himself in glory this season, cutting an increasingly frustrated figure, Pools have failed to play to his strengths. After all, the 32-year-old, who scored a hat-trick against Pools on the opening day of the 2022/23 campaign, has always been renowned as a fox-in-the-box type of striker. Despite that, Pools have often asked him to run the channels or operate with his back to goal - it's little wonder he has looked so frustrated.

As well as Reid and Johnson, Pools turned to the likes of Jermaine Francis and Matty Daly over the summer in a bid to bolster their attacking options. Again, the signings were generally well-received at the time, with Francis arriving off the back of an impressive loan spell with fellow National League side Braintree that saw him score eight times in 29 league games while Daly returned to Victoria Park having bagged seven goals in 27 matches during an earlier loan spell at Victoria Park.

In spite of initial promise, neither Francis nor Daly have really managed to live up to initial expectations. Indeed, Francis has already been and gone having completed a permanent move to Sutton last month after falling out of favour under Featherstone, while Daly has found himself in and out of the starting XI in recent weeks. The fact that Luke Charman, who was already at Victoria Park prior to the club's summer shopping-spree, has been arguably his side's most impressive attacker this term despite finding himself out of favour at the beginning of the campaign suggests that the signings made ahead of the new season have failed to improve Pools in any meaningful sense.

Of course, Pools have tried hard to use the loan and free agent markets to bolster their ranks in the final third throughout the season. While it's true that Pools were unfortunate that the experienced Vadaine Oliver was struck down by a serious injury in October having scored four times in his last five games, the loan signings of Michael Dacosta-Gonzalez, Pharrell Brown and Ashley Nathaniel-George all arrived with a feeling that the club were hoping rather than expecting them to make a positive impact. Clearly, serious questions need to be asked about some of the club's scattergun recent recruitment.

Pools fans will take heart, then, from the fact that the club seem to be working towards implementing a new data-led, analytically-focused approach to their recruitment in the wake of American businessman and investor Landon Smith's takeover of the club on New Year's Eve. That's already resulted in the recent arrivals of Gavan Holohan, a teammate of Featherstone's when Pools last won promotion from the National League in 2021, and York loanee Tyrese Sinclair. Both men are far more established than the likes of Dacosta-Gonzalez, who arrived at Pools having never played a senior game, Brown, whose prior senior experience constituted a single appearance as a late substitute for Northern Premier League Division One West side Clitheroe, and Nathaniel-George, who hadn't started a match all season before sealing a move to Pools.

Yet for all supporters will rightly ask questions of the club's recent recruitment, another important question must also be considered - why is it that the likes of Reid, Johnson and Daly, well-established players who have enjoyed considerable success elsewhere, have found the going so tough this season?

It seems pretty apparent that both Grayson and Featherstone have struggled to bring the best out of their attacking options this term. While Featherstone might with some justification point to the fact that he has, more or less, inherited a squad assembled by Grayson, widely regarded as a defensive-minded pragmatist, the new Pools boss does not seem to have done much to inspire a turnaround in his side's attacking fortunes. True, Pools have shown flashes of what they can do during impressive wins over Eastleigh and Rochdale, both strong contenders for the most complete performances of the entire campaign, but a run of just seven goals in the last 10 matches tells its own story.

Saturday's humbling 3-0 defeat to an Aldershot side who had conceded seven times in their three matches prior to the weekend provides a clear insight into where things are going wrong for Pools in the final third. Even after Featherstone dispensed with one of the three defensive-minded midfielders he has tended to favour for large parts of his tenure, dropping Jack Hunter to the bench and naming an attack-minded starting XI that included debutants Holohan and Sinclair as well as the fleet-footed Sam Folarin, Pools looked like a blunt instrument for large parts of the afternoon.

While Featherstone might be keen to maintain a semblance of structure and organisation, the importance of which is not always immediately obvious to the average match-going supporter, the fact is that almost all of Hartlepool United's most successful managers have sent their teams out to play on the front foot and attack with purpose. At the moment, Featherstone is struggling to strike the right balance between the need to maintain his side's defensive solidity - Pools have kept an impressive 13 clean sheets this term, seven of which have come under Featherstone - with the absolute necessity to demonstrate to fans a renewed attacking intent.

The unique footballing culture of clubs in the North East means that little else other than blood, thunder and a determination to attack and entertain will do in the eyes of some of the most passionate and committed supporters in the country; Featherstone, who has spent well over a decade at Victoria Park and is the club's third highest appearance-maker of all-time, will need to be mindful of that.

Some of the issues plaguing Pools when it comes to scoring goals - a lack of attacking personnel as well as the deteriorating pitch at Victoria Park - will not be solved overnight. Yet Featherstone's recent comments that the current Pools side are not ready to play a more expansive, attacking brand of football are unlikely to land well with supporters. Hartlepool United is and always has been a team and a club with exciting football and prolific goalscorers at its heart - Featherstone should be better-placed than most to understand that.

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