BREWERS SHOWING DELIGHTS JIMMY
JIMMY FLOYD-HASSELBAINK made a career out of scoring goals. Now as a manager he’s doing the same. Taking charge at Burton, he engineered their biggest home victory in almost four years, as they thumped a desperate Hartlepool United side, who were watched by prospective new boss Ronnie Moore.
It took 44 minutes for the Brewers to make their breakthrough, and they cracked in three more early in the second period to finish the game off.
Alex MacDonald scored twice, Shane Candsell-Sherriff and Stuart Beavon got the others.
“I’m happy for the team and we keep on going. It was good for Shane to score he has been getting into good positions and it worked,’’ beamed Hasselbaink.
“Goals from defenders are important, but he also kept a cleansheet.You have to finish the game professionally and not get into bad habits.
“We are a side playing with confidence. We scored four and could have had more.
“We want to score goals, play attacking football if we can. It’s good to see us score four goals.
“It took a while to break through. Hartlepool have lost their manager and the caretaker manager has them organised and made them hard to beat.
“The tempo was too low, not high enough, but I must say our tempo and focus needed to be harder.We scored at a beautiful time, right before half-time.
“My mindset didn’t change, but it changed mentally for the players. At one-nil do you sit back or keep going for more and we did that. We looked good at stages and were in control.’’
The first-half was a fairly even game, with Pools – cut adrift at the foot of the division by six points –holding firm.
Pools’ on-loan midfielder Matty Dolan went close with a clipped free-kick, but neither keeper was worked or stretched.
But, on half-time, Pools failed to deal with a cross and defender Matthew Bates collided with Jordan Richards. The ball fell for MacDonald, who curled in a shot.
Then it took only 22 seconds for the second goal at the start of the second half to arrive, MacDonald finishing well after the ball was knocked down by striker Jacob Blyth.
Confidence shattered, Pools conceded a third when Candsell-Sherriff nodded in.
And the Brewers smashed in a fourth, Beavon cracking in after being given the freedom of the penalty area.
Pools’ caretaker boss Sam Collins said:“It’s so frustrating. We were strong and the last thing we wanted to happen as half-time came was to concede.We lost the ball on the edge of our box when we didn’t need to. “Right on half-time, and we go in onedown.We gave them the same message, work hard, stay in the game and some of the staff haven’t even come out of the dressing room and it’s two.
“We concede from a set-piece and then put no pressure on the ball. “We have prepared well, gave them every piece of information they need.You cannot legislate for what happened.”