'Not good enough' - Keith Curle gives honest assessment of his Hartlepool United squad after Barrow defeat

Hartlepool were beaten within 21 minutes at Holker Street after a shocking start saw a high-flying Barrow side race into a 3-0 lead. Josh Gordon, Ben Whitfield and Billy Waters each got in on the act to leave Pools shellshocked before new signing Christopher Missilou grabbed a consolation late in the second half.

Gordon punished Ben Killip for a mistake inside five minutes before Whitfield doubled the Bluebirds’ advantage four minutes later when powering home with Waters completing an impressive start from Pete Wild’s side when tapping in from close range.

Despite seeing an improvement after the break, Hartlepool were unable to reverse the damage done in the first half with Curle questioning some within his squad for being unable to string together consistent 90 minutes worth of performances.

“There’s too many that are not good enough that don’t show it on a consistent basis,” said Curle.

“That’s not saying anything publicly that I've not said to the players. I like protecting my players, I like protecting the changing room.

“But you can’t keep on putting in performances of substandard for 45 minutes and think another 45 minutes will get you out of it. How about having 90 minutes of doing the right things at the right times?”

Curle continued by suggesting his players looked like ‘strangers’ in what was a first half blitz from Barrow before admitting if he can’t change the mentality of some within the squad then he will have to look elsewhere for new recruits.

“They looked like strangers,” said Curle.

“You either change players or you change players. When I say change players you change a players’ mentality and how they train and their application and their desire and their focus and you see a change in their performance levels consistently.

“If you cannot get those players to change, you change players. There’s no shying away from it.

“It’s nothing personal. It’s professional. If you get let go from a League Two club who is at the bottom of the division there’s usually a reason why.”