Nicky Featherstone's promotion message after new Hartlepool United contract

Featherstone agreed terms on a new contract with Hartlepool until the end of the season after his initial month-long deal came to an end.

The 35-year-old will now complete a 10th season with Pools following a summer which looked to have brought his career in blue and white to a close.

Talks broke down over a new deal after Hartlepool were relegated from the Football League but, after returning to help the club during a difficult period with injuries in October, manager John Askey has finally been able to tie Featherstone down for the remainder of the season.

And for Featherstone it provides a piece of mind, safe in the knowledge he knows what the next six months of his career will look like with the former skipper still of the belief Pools can make a fist of things this season when it comes to their tilt at promotion.

“Getting out of the month contract and prolonging it until the end of the season gives me an opportunity just to purely focus on my fitness and whatever it needs to help get the best results for Hartlepool United,” said Featherstone.

“It gives me a focus,” he added:

“In terms of the team there’s still a real opportunity for us. We’re only five points off the play-offs so we’re not out of it yet. Two or three wins gets you right back in that. So the goal still remains to push for the play-off places and promotion.

“But, realistically, we’ve got to address a few issues for us to reach those targets.”

Those issues to address come after Hartlepool have seen their form nosedive in recent weeks with just two wins in 12 games in all competitions.

Featherstone has been present for six of those games having featured in all but two minutes for Askey since his return to the club against Boreham Wood.

But despite results dropping off, Featherstone believes performances have offered enough encouragement to suggest form will pick up.

“Other than the Chester game I think we’ve lost each of the games by one goal. We’ve always been in games,” he said.

“The Boreham Wood game we created enough chances that night to win comfortably and then we go and concede a really poor goal. The Eastleigh game was really positive, we scored three goals and barring a wonder strike from Chris Maguire we’d have kept a clean sheet that day, we looked really solid.

“So there’s positives to take from some of the performances, even the Aldershot game it was a solid away performance for 80 minutes of the game and then we imploded for two or three minutes and it’s cost us.

“The defeats that we’ve had in the league, since I’ve been here, we’ve been in the games pretty much every game.

“We had a really good start before I came in, I was watching the results – there were some really positive results and performances.

“A few injuries have dictated why we’ve struggled of late. But it’s an opportunity for us against teams in and around the bottom with Ebbsfleet, York and Kidderminster to kick-start our season again.”