Story of the day: Salford City 2-0 Hartlepool United – fifth away defeat in six for Pools in League Two

Pools XI to face Salford: Killip; Francis-Angol, Byrne, Odusina; Ferguson, Sterry, Featherstone, Ogle; Daly, Grey, Goodwin

Subs: Mitchell, Shelton, Cullen, Jones, Hendrie, Fondop, Holohan

“I would have expected them to be up there because you look at teams on paper at the start of the season and they were one with the investment and ambition they have that you’d put higher than what they are at the moment,” Challinor said.

“But we’re quarter of the way through, they’ll look at how they’ve missed players through suspension and things like that and look to put a run together.

“That run can come at any time and the way the table is, a few wins can completely change the outlook of where you’re at.

“There’s been a lot of change there over the last 12 months where Gary [Bowyer] has come in and brought in his own players and style. They’ve got a squad full of players who have played at a higher level so it will be difficult.”

“We have a bit of a selection dilemma around what team we pick and whether we can pick the team we want or if we have to be conservative,” Pools manager Dave Challinor admitted.

“We’ll definitely not see Jordan Cook. He injured his groin [adductor] towards the last minute of the game last Saturday in a freak incident where he’s gone to hurdle one of the opposition players over by the dugout and has felt his groin.

“He’s had a scan and he’s probably going to be out six weeks minimum which is unfortunate because he’d made a positive impact in the games he’d been involved in.

“Mols has got a bit of a trivial one really. He’s had issues with stiffness after games. He’s been involved in training on Monday but came in after training and got a significant bruise on the inside of his thigh.

“If we decide to play him there will be a risk involved in that but we’ll look at him in training and he feels fine within himself so we’ll make a decision. We hope he can be involved because he’s an important player for us.”

Dominic Scurr here and I’ll be down in Salford bringing you the best (and possibly worst) of the action from the Peninsula Stadium throughout the day.

Pools are still looking for that elusive away win having lost four and drawn one of their five games on the road so far this season.

But their home form has kept them in and around the play-off places with victory this afternoon having the potential to shoot them into the top three if all results miraculously go their way.

Salford’s season hasn’t gone to plan so far considering they were favourites for promotion at the start of the campaign. They’ve picked up just 12 points from their opening 11 games.

We’ll have all the build-up, team news, action and reaction right here in our live blog. Simply refresh the page and scroll through to stay up to date...