John Askey's 'surprise' at Hartlepool United's 'Sunday morning stuff' in Crawley Town defeat

Hartlepool continued in the same manner in which they arrived into the game following successive 2-0 defeats on the road against Newport County and Salford City.

But given the significance of this fixture, a fixture which was must win as far as Askey was concerned, the Hartlepool boss was almost at a loss for words as his side turned in a poor performance at the most critical moment of the season in front of the club’s biggest crowd of the year at the Suit Direct Stadium.

“It did surprise me, to be honest. I thought we would have got more of a reaction than what we got and that was the biggest disappointment,” Askey told The Mail.

“You just wonder why. If that [crowd] doesn’t inspire you, what does?

“Whether they’re not capable for it to bring out the best in them, I don’t know. But that’s how it looked, didn’t it? It looked as though one or two went under rather than embracing it and running harder and competing harder than you’ve ever done.

“For whatever reason that didn’t happen.”

Having struggled to handle the occasion throughout the first half, Hartlepool fell behind when Dom Telford was on hand to head home from close range from Aramide Oteh’s header back across goal five minutes before the break.

And despite a slight improvement in the second half, Askey’s side were unable to really trouble Corey Addai in the Crawley goal who then turned provider for Telford’s second in what Askey described as ‘Sunday morning’ standard from his defence as they allowed a route one goal kick to end up in the back of their net.

“We never really got going I don’t think,” said Askey.

“Again our defending was poor for the two goals and when we had an opportunity to get back into the game we didn’t take it. That could have changed the game completely. It’s difficult to know what to say really.

“They scored and we had one or two chances when it was 1-0. We came out in the second half and started to get a bit of pressure and then the second goal kills us, again.

“We huffed and puffed. We got into one or two decent positions but it either didn’t fall for us or when we got wide the crossing was poor. It was a poor display.

“Goals like that shouldn’t happen,” Askey added on Telford’s second goal.

“If you concede goals like that, that’s why we are where we are. It’s a killer. That is Sunday morning stuff.

“It doesn’t matter who the manager is, that shouldn’t happen. But as a league football player for the keeper to kick it as far as he has and as high as he has, and it happened only seconds before, to not be able to deal with that, then there’s something wrong.

“There’s nothing you can do and after the game, because of what’s happened, it’s pointless saying too much. I can go in there and rant and rage and shout but it’s done. We’re in the situation we’re in.”