After being beaten 5-0 at Walsall’s Saturday opponents Preston North End on Tuesday night, Hartlepool manager Neale Cooper had stern words for his squad aired in the press.

Following his away day embarrassment Cooper ranted:

“They’ll be in at nine o’clock to watch the game, usually they are off.

“I don’t care if they live in Leeds, Preston or wherever – everyone will be in to sit and watch that DVD.

“They need to deserve days off – they don’t deserve days off after that, it was weak.

“I’m so angry because I’m embarrassed – I’ve never had a team just give up and collapse like that.

“There’s not enough leaders.

“One thing I have always had is a team that will go down fighting – they just rolled over.”

“I had to stay out the changing room because I didn’t want to go in there and have a heart attack – I don’t think some of them would care anyway.

“I’m shocked.  I just don’t know what I’m going to get at times.

“I could not have given them more praise after Bournemouth.

“And we started OK, but that counts for nothing now.

“We let them get their tails up – Simon gets caught on it for the first after we’d said ‘don’t take any chances’.

“They then get a second where we’re too far off him.

“The back four are too soft – not good enough.

“Then at the end for the fifth – how easy was that? Getting by Neil Austin and then Sam Collins.

“I’m raging, but I didn’t go in the dressing room like that because it’s not good for you.

Next up for Preston is a trip to The Banks’s on Saturday.