What to expect at Hartlepool United this transfer deadline day

Pools have made a solid start to life back in League Two and will be spending the latter hours of deadline day facing Carlisle United at Brunton Park in the Papa John’s Trophy (7pm kick-off).

That is likely to hamper any last minute deals being completed with Challinor hoping to complete his summer transfer business prior to kick-off.

"I don’t think I’ll be up late at night trying to get deals done,” he told The Mail.

“It’s all encompassing to be fair, they seem like long nights anyway but I’ll do whatever it takes to get deals done.

"Football has changed and lots of things are done away from the football clubs. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

"I’ll do whatever it takes and if there’s some interesting stories on deadline day that would be great but I’m just hoping that it will be pretty run of the mill and we’ll get the players we need.”

Sources close to Pools have suggested that the club’s transfer business may have concluded with the arrival of Luke Hendrie on Monday.

But The Mail understands Hartlepool remain active in the transfer market with Challinor wanting to bring at least two more players in, but time is against him.

There could also be an outgoing with several clubs understood to be interested in Gavan Holohan and Pools could be tempted to cash in on the 29-year-old, who is out of contract next summer.

Pools are targeting more forward options as well as another goalkeeper.

The form of young strike force Tyler Burey and Will Goodwin has helped alleviate some pressure to sign forward players but Challinor is still keen to bolster his options.

“Their form has potentially made it less of a necessity but we still want to bring someone in,” Challinor told The Mail.

“Even with what we’ve got, I hope it doesn’t happen but especially with Tyler and Will, they’re going to have games where things don’t go for them.

"Will experienced that a little bit on Saturday but he still worked hard and was a threat for us but it didn’t go his way at times which happens.

"With the bodies we’ve got fit, bringing in extra bodies to supplement that puts the pressure on in some ways in terms of competition for places but also helps relieve it to a degree because there’s not that dependency on one person to go and get the goals to win us games.

"We’ll look at that but it’s about bringing in the right ones as well.”

Elsewhere in the squad, Zaine Francis-Angol’s performances on the left of the back three have helped provide a solution to Pools’ lack of left-sided balance.

“It’s about covering and ticking bases for us,” he added.

"In that instance, it’s about us covering every eventuality for the next four or five months. It’s not a case of bringing in a left sided centre-back and they’re going to come straight into the side because no one is guaranteed to play.

"Competition is always healthy and we have to cover the worst case scenario.”

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