John Askey addresses recent Hartlepool United goal struggles after return to form

Hartlepool had gone three games without a goal on their way to losing three games on the spin in the National League after what had been a bright start when it comes to ‘goals for.’

Led by summer signing Emmanuel Dieseruvwe, Hartlepool were the league’s leading scorers in the opening month of the season with 15 goals from their first six games – five of those coming from Dieseruvwe.

But both Pools and Dieseruvwe were not as prolific in September with just seven goals in seven games and only one for Dieseruvwe.

It coincided with a loss of form for John Askey’s side with just two wins in eight National League games stretching into October’s opener at Boreham Wood.

Thankfully, Askey’s men were able to rectify that against Eastleigh as they regained their scoring touch with Dieseruvwe, once more, leading the way.

“Once he scored his first then he looked like he did at the start of the season,” Askey said of Dieseruvwe.

“He’s got more to his game than just goals, which is good when you’ve got a centre-forward who can virtually do everything. We just hope he goes on another run again now.

“But the reason why he looked better is because of the football we’re playing as well, putting balls into the right areas. There were a lot of good performances. We looked like ourselves a little bit.”

“Sometimes you go through spells like that,” Askey added of Hartlepool's recent goal-shy side.

“Every game [at the start of the season] we looked as though we were going to get four or five. Maybe it’s through personnel changing; we haven’t had the same dynamic players as we did before so maybe the ball takes a little bit longer to get to the forwards, but I think some of it has been down to not great finishing as well.

“But we can’t lose sight of the fact we haven’t been playing too badly.

“You have to see if it’s the right combination. We’ve got options up front, it’s just a matter of getting the right one, but whoever we put on I feel we’re quite strong.”