Cook: Pompey players give it their all

Trevor Carson was the hero for the visitors, with four excellent stops, three of which arrived late on, as Pompey dominated this afternoon’s match.

Yet try as they might - and with eight minutes of time added on - the Blues couldn’t find a way past their former loanee.

The result was tremendously disappointing for the Fratton faithful, yet Cook is adamant his team’s approach warranted so much more.

He said: ‘We are disappointed not to take three points.

‘But as a manager you can look at your team and say how well have we set up? Have we created enough chances? Have we had enough attempts on goal? Of course we have.

‘The criticism will come from a part of our support that we should be beating Hartlepool and I genuinely don’t feel we can do a lot more to win the game other than players put chances away we created.

‘The reality is we have to accept what has gone on, we never looked in danger of the game and it’s not a case of setting up for 0-0 - we can’t be more attacking than we have, we cannot physically put in as many crosses as we have.’