Story of the night: Swindon Town 3-1 Hartlepool United – Pools unlucky as they fall to fourth straight League Two defeat
and live on Freeview channel 276
Jonny Williams’ opener was cancelled out by Matty Daly before Swindon secured victory with goals from Tyreece Simpson and Jack Payne.
The result sees Pools drop to 15th in the table having picked up zero points and conceded 13 goals in their last four league outings.
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FULL-TIME: Swindon Town 3 (Williams 52’, Simpson 69’, Payne 90+4’) Hartlepool United 1 (Daly 61’)
Key Events
- Swindon XI: Wollacott; Odimayo, Iandolo, Conroy, Simpson, Payne, McKirdy (Gladwin 72), Williams (Lyden 85), Kesler-Hayden, Hunt, Reed
- Swindon subs: Gladwin, Lyden, Ward, Mitchell-Lawson, Gilbert, East, Grant
- Swindon bookings: McKirdy (59)
- Pools XI: Killip; Ogle, Byrne, Liddle, Francis-Angol (Holohan 76), Ferguson; Featherstone, Crawford, Daly (Fondop 76), Molyneux; Cullen (Olomola 66)
- Pools subs: Mitchell, Hendrie, Shelton, Holohan, Grey, Fondop, Olomola
- Pools bookings: none
- Referee: Lee Swabey
- Attendance: 7,714 (75 Pools)
The League Two table
Here’s how the table looks going into tonight’s matches...
Tonight’s fixtures - 7:45pm kick-off
Northampton Town v Oldham Athletic
Forest Green Rovers v Barrow
Tranmere Rovers v Bradford City
Sutton United v Mansfield Town
Crawley Town v Newport County
Colchester United v Exeter City
Scunthorpe United v Leyton Orient
Salford City v Bristol Rovers
Port Vale v Walsall
Swindon Town v Hartlepool United
Rochdale v Stevenage
Carlisle United v Harrogate Town
Improvements needed for Pools with tonight’s match another opportunity for the players
“No one likes to be on the bench or in the stands but opportunities come when you least expect them and Tuesday will be an opportunity for some,” Sweeney said.
“The players who started on Saturday also have an opportunity to prove that their performance then was not their usual standard.
“We need to look at ourselves long and hard because twice in the space of a month, Leyton Orient 5-0 and this game, where we’ve been soundly beaten and that can’t happen too often.
“We need to be a lot more resilient and everything we were at Wycombe on a consistent basis in order to get to where we want to be this season.”
Early team news from Antony Sweeney
The Hartlepool United interim manager told The Mail: “Gav [Holohan] is back in training and we could have involved him on Saturday but we didn’t want to risk him because we’ve got to keep our players fit and available for as long as possible.
“It was a gamble that we felt wasn’t worth taking. Had I known how the game would have played out, perhaps in hindsight I would have done things differently but the extra rest will do Gav the world of good.
“He’s in contention for Tuesday but we’ll see where we’re at with the other lads.
“Cooky is still out but the likes of Will [Goodwin], Eddy [Jones], Timi [Odusina] and Martin Smith, they’ll all be available and we may need to rely on them.”
Welcome back to our Pools live blog!
Dominic Scurr here, down in Swindon as Hartlepool United look to bounce back from Saturday’s 3-1 defeat to Forest Green Rovers and pick up a much needed three points.
It’s been a solid season for Pools on the whole but three consecutive League Two defeats have caused some concern as the club enters its fourth week of searching for a new permanent manager.
Antony Sweeney remains in temporary charge for the time being. The Pools favourite didn’t hold back in his assessment of the side’s performance on Saturday and admitted big improvements are needed if they want to pick up something at Swindon this evening.
We’ll have all the build-up, updates and reaction from The County Ground throughout the evening.
Simply refresh the page and scroll through our live blog to stay up to date..