Cooper: Not good enough

Manager Colin Cooper branded Hartlepool's start to the season as "not good enough" following the goalless draw with Portsmouth.

Pools entered the game languishing second-bottom of the League Two table. Cooper's men rose out of the relegation zone following the stalemate, yet have collected just 10 points from eight games. He admits that total falls below expectations, although he declared himself pleased with their result against Pompey. "It is not good enough," Cooper said. "We've had a couple of good results but eight points from 10 games is nowhere near good enough." Speaking about the Portsmouth game, he added: "We have got to be happy. "Everybody sets out with a plan to get three points but Portsmouth had the better chances. "We both tried to play a bit. I thought we had all the momentum in the second half but Scott &£91;Flinders&£93; still made the best save. "People will say we might have won it in the last 10 minutes and we might have done but we didn't have the quality to finish it off. "We only had half-chances and all we can do is take a point and try to take the positives." Hartlepool's next outing looks a crucial one as basement club Carlisle visit Victoria Park, although Cooper was keen to play down its importance. "It's the 11th game of the season and it's third-bottom versus bottom; it's just another game for me," he added. "It's a game I want to win, not for me, but for the team and for the fans. I worked very hard to get player win bonuses in contracts and I want them to have one next Saturday." Cooper's opposite number Andy Awford was left ruing Portsmouth's profligacy, with Craig Westcarr and Patrick Agyemang spurning the best of the opportunities. "We spoke about the fact Hartlepool had not had the best of starts and how we wanted to keep them negative," he said. "We wanted to really go for it in the first half and I think we dominated it. We had enough chances to have been in front so I am a little bit disappointed with that. "The positives are that we kept a clean sheet. They had a good spell in the last 10 minutes and got going. "But thankfully we saw that out without too many problems." Awford, though, was also satisfied by the result. "Any point is good," he added. "We would have preferred three points but that is three games unbeaten now. "The other thing is that we had had two away defeats before that spell. We're back on the road next week at York so we'll see how we go."