'Nothing to fear' for Hartlepool United midfielder ahead of Northampton Town clash

Cooke made his return to action from a two month lay-off with an ankle injury as he scored the opening goal in Hartlepool's 1-1 draw with Tranmere Rovers.

The 26-year-old completed just over 60 minutes on his return from what he described as a mentally challenging injury.

Cooke was, however, left frustrated that his second league goal of the season was only good enough for a point for John Askey’s side after a contentious penalty decision allowed Tranmere back into the game.

And Cooke suggests Hartlepool cannot feel sorry for themselves following that draw with another vital home fixture to come as they welcome promotion chasing Northampton.

“There’s no sugar coating it. We’re in a relegation scrap,” Cooke told The Mail.

“Crawley have got games in hand on us but we don’t want to worry about anybody else. We need to worry about ourselves.

“We have to pick ourselves up and we have to hold our heads high and put it right, starting with Northampton.”

He added: “We could manage the game a bit better, we still didn’t start as well as we wanted to so there’s room for improvement.

“We want to be on the ball a bit more but this is the gaffer's second week, we haven’t been beaten yet. It’s two points from two games. We know we want to be winning games and we just have to keep going.

“It’s a good changing room and a good group of lads. We need to keep believing.

“We’ve got a home game with Northampton - they’ve started to come off the boil a little bit so if we go at them from the start, like what the gaffer has said, there’s nothing to fear in this league.

“We shouldn’t be going into games worried about anybody. It’s about what we can hurt them with and do to other teams.”

Prior to their weekend win over Hartlepool’s relegation rivals Crawley, Northampton had won just one of their last six league games - a run which has seen them slide out of the automatic promotion places, but the Cobblers still represent a stern test for Askey’s side.