John Askey's verdict on the contrasting nature of Hartlepool United's performance in Rochdale defeat

Hartlepool almost claimed a share of the spoils with Nicky Featherstone and Emmanuel Dieseruvwe reducing the deficit after Askey’s side had given themselves a mountain to climb when falling three goals behind.

After a troubling week for Pools things were made worse when Cian Hayes put Rochdale in front within three minutes of their return to home soil with yet more slack defending.

It was a lead Rochdale would extend through Jimmy Keohane and Ryan East in what Askey described as one of the worst 45 minutes he has ever seen.

But Pools were given a flicker of hope through Featherstone’s strike in the sixth minute of first half stoppage time – a goal that would give the home side a much-needed shot in the arm in the second half as their performance improved immeasurably.

And when Dieseruvwe headed in his 11th goal of the season five minutes from time there was hope Hartlepool would be able to snatch a draw away from a game in which they were dead and buried – hope which almost became a reality when Dieseruvwe spurned a golden opportunity deep into second half stoppage time.

But despite their improved second half display, Askey was unable to take any positives from his changed side.

“There’s no positives if you’re losing games,” he said.

“The first half was the worst I’ve ever seen. You can take heart from the response at half-time – we should, in the end, have got a point, but we’ve given ourselves a mountain to climb.

“It doesn’t matter what changes you make you’ve got to play with a bit of passion and fight. And goals like that, it doesn’t matter who turns out, if you’re a professional footballer and you’ve got players there with experience, those goals shouldn’t happen.

“The players realised if they didn’t go out and have a go it could get embarrassing. We changed it and we seemed to have more energy and people worked harder. But to keep conceding the goals we concede then there’s problems and, as yet, we haven’t been able to resolve it, no matter what the personnel or what way we play.”