John Askey defends Hartlepool United penalty confusion as ex-Rangers man opens his account

Hastie came off the bench and made an impact despite Hartlepool slumping to an opening day defeat at Barnet.

The former Rangers winger scored his first goal for the club since joining from the Scottish Premiership side last summer with a well-placed finish into the bottom corner of Laurie Walker’s goal before going on to win a penalty for Pools in stoppage time.

Hastie was quick to pick himself up and took control of the situation by putting the ball down on the spot – despite Umerah’s frustrations, with the 26-year-old also keen to take the spot kick himself.

Hastie was denied by an excellent save from Walker before the rebound was recycled to Umerah who finished well to reduce the deficit even further.

But despite Hastie missing from 12-yards, Hartlepool boss Askey admits he has no issue with the Scotsman taking the initiative and suggests there will be no fallout with him or Umerah over Hastie’s missed penalty, although it is something they will address to prevent any future confusion over who will take penalties.

"Jake had won the penalty and obviously had scored just before so he fancied it,” Askey told BBC Radio Tees.

“If Jake had smacked it into the back of the net, nobody would have said a word, so I’m not worried about that.

"Jake was obviously confident, he takes them in training and he has done for previous teams and he fancied it. Luckily for us, Josh reacted quickly and it was a great finish. Things like that we’ll address and it won’t happen again.

"But what was disappointing after that was we got into positions where we could have put them under some pressure and the execution of the pass forward was poor. There’s a lot to improve on and there were one or two stern words to the players.”

Despite their late fightback at the Hive, Askey was left frustrated by his side’s defensive frailties during their opening day defeat at Barnet.