Players must bounce back from defeat, says Jones

Dave Jones says he will use his managerial nous to help Hartlepool United’s out-of-sorts players.

But the experienced boss insists the inspiration should be coming from within the squad.

Pools have not tasted success for seven games and face a must-win match with managerless Barnet in League Two this Saturday.

Jones bristled at the assertion that the players should need lifting.

“It does my head in when I hear people saying ‘you’ve got to get them going’,” Jones said. “They are professional footballers, they are paid to play football.

“No-one had to get me going, no-one had to lift me, you lift yourself. We’ll do it but there has to be a response, it can’t just go one way.”

Jones is in a difficult situation.

He probably can’t publicly lambast the team, given the fragile mental state they are in, because he needs the players to play for him against the Bees on Saturday as they fight for their Football League survival.

Jones was quite protective of his players after Monday’s 2-1 defeat at bottom side Leyton Orient, suggesting some froze.

However, he hinted that he laid it on the line to them in the aftermath

“Am I angry? yeah,” he said. “You don’t see my emotion, it’s inside. What goes on in there [the dressing room] stays in there but they know where we are.

“They know what we have to do. They will know that for the next three games.”

Jones dismissed any notions there is a lack of fight in the players, though they were certainly shown up in that regard by Orient’s young side.

“There is fight there, there just wasn’t enough of it,” said the Pools boss, who wants the players who were at the club during a recent ‘Great Escape’ to come to the fore.

“There must be 50% to 60% who have been in this situation before,” said Jones. “We have to draw on that experience to make sure it [relegation] does not happen.”