With Joe Grey missing through illness and Callum Cooke still coming back from injury, it was straight in for the new man Mitch Hancox against Ebbsfleet. Pools looked to be lined up in a back four of Ferguson, Mattock, Onariase and Johnson from the start, with Hancox playing to the left of a midfield that was quite easily bypassed in the first 20 minutes.
The visitors’ midfield shape was more or less a mirror image of Pools’, which in theory would have been a man-to-man job with Crawford and Hancox pushing onto two holding midfielders and Featherstone occupying the number 10 Tanner. From the start, though, Ebbsfleet, with the experienced Josh Wright at the base of midfield, shifted the ball well from one side to the other to release Tanner the dangerman, who was constantly drifting into space in the inside left and right channels either side of Featherstone. The absence of a spare man to step out of the back three and pick up the roaming number 10 left Pools’ skipper with plenty of space to cover, with his centre halves pinned back by two centre forwards. In truth, Ebbsfleet should probably have made more of two or three really good openings in the first half, though Pools did become more disciplined without the ball as half-time approached, Wreh moving closer to Dieseruvwe and beginning to force mistakes by pressing the opposition.
After half-time it was a back three for Pools, though Plan B was then ripped up with Mattock down injured before the hour. While Agyemang struggled out at right wing back (unsurprisingly replaced by Pattison), on the other side Hancox thrived in a position with which he is familiar. Callum Cooke’s re-introduction was hastened by Mattock’s injury, but as the game became stretched his forward passing offered Pools a more direct threat – once again, Pools finished the game strongly. Only the frustration of another soft set-piece goal conceded meant that the winless run would continue.
The return of Cooke and the pre-match reappearance of Antony Mancini will be a welcome boost for Askey and hopefully a chance to re-set an ever-changing midfield. The one constant so far has been Crawford, though where he starts in a fully fit line-up would be the question - he arguably looked most comfortable as a holding midfielder early in the season with the forward-looking Mancini and Cooke ahead of him. Featherstone has been excellent since his comeback but the temptation for Askey, if Cooke is back to full fitness, could be to move Crawford back into that position in an effort to find some midfield balance.
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