Keith Curle questions his Hartlepool United side following dismal defeat at Gillingham

In what was a huge clash at the bottom of League Two it was bottom side Gillingham who came out on top, and they did so with an alarming ease as far as Curle’s side are concerned.

The hosts went in front thanks to their new signing Tom Nichols who flicked in Alex MacDonald’s free kick at the near post before Dom Jefferies doubled the lead for the home side on the hour just after Hartlepool thought they had found a route back into the game through Josh Umerah.

Umerah glanced in Mark Shelton’s deflected effort only for the offside flag to deny him a 12th goal of the season before Jefferies raced through the middle to find the top corner of Ben Killip’s goal to condemn Pools to a crushing defeat.

“I don’t like losing. I’m frustrated, I’m annoyed, I’m angry because there’s things there that I think are standard basics that we’re not doing,” said Curle.

“You’re playing against somebody who is 6ft 5in so he’s going to beat a lot of our players in the air so why do we commit and go for headers? We’ve got three people going for a header with him, lost it, and there’s three people out of their game and the next thing is Jefferies runs off people.

“The worst thing is it’s something we talked about on the coaching ground when we found out they were signing [Ollie] Hawkins because if you continue to compete and get beat in the air you might as well drop your shirt on the floor which is what we did.”

But, perhaps, more concerning for Curle was the manner in which Pools surrendered to defeat at the Priestfield - with the home side appearing to want it more than Hartlepool.

“Is it a lack of fight? Is it a lack of willingness? Is it a lack of endeavour? Or is it that they're not good enough?” said Curle.

“I need to improve it. It’s not as if we’re not trying. We’ve bought four people in. We've missed out on two and we’re still in negotiations with three more which will improve us.”