Keith Curle confident Hartlepool United can build on clean sheet in goalless draw with Gillingham

Curle took interim charge as Pools were forced to settle for a point against a Gills side who are also low on confidence having won just once all season.

But for Pools, their wait continues as they were denied a perfect start under Curle despite a couple of near misses throughout the game.

Wes McDonald saw his goal bound effort well cleared from the line by Ryan Law in first half stoppage time before Mikael Ndjoli brought a fine save from Glenn Morris to deny the striker’s header.

Mohamad Sylla went close deep into to stoppage time but Curle had to make do with a point.

“I’ve walked into a football club who havent been gaining results to build confidence on,” said Curle.

“They’ve been conceding goals and havent been scoring enough goals. So you have to think what am I going to address?

“First and foremost you address can we get solid as a team? Can we get solid as a football club and be difficult to beat and difficult to compete against?

“So a clean sheet, we take it every day. It’s a good starting point then you can build.”

Despite seeing chances go awry for Pools, as their struggles in front of goal continued, Curle believes the composure and added quality will come for his players with the interim boss challenging his side to give him an extra ‘half-a-yard’ in games.

“We started the game nervous and there were little bits where we were coming up short. We wanted to play in behind their defence but I don't think we gave our centre forwards enough to work with,” said Curle.

“We were trying to be a little bit too precise and trying to drop the balls into them whereby it started turning into fight ball.

“But overall if you look at it, I think Ben has had one cross and one half shot [to deal with] and we were pushing and we had that dominance and we were able to get people in the right areas.

“We just need that other half-a-yard out of the players.”