SPORTS Editor Nick Loughlin looks back at Craig Hignett's reign at Hartlepool.

The Northern Echo: Craig Hignett  at Maiden Castle in Durham City. Picture: CHRIS BOOTH

FEBRUARY 2016. Craig Hignett is appointed Hartlepool United manager.

Eleven months later he’s sacked.

From axing Ronnie Moore to installing Hignett, it took chairman Gary Coxall a matter of hours. Removing him from the post was a longer process, one which unravelled over a course of weeks and months.

“It’s been a really tough day. We made some tough calls, but for the right decision. It’s time to showcase what the club is becoming,’’ said Coxall last year.

So what is Hartlepool United becoming?

The progressive club of the turn of the Millennium has long gone. Play-off campaigns and promotions have been replaced by a constant fight against relegation.

Since 2008/9 there’s only been one season – either League One or Two – when they’ve not battled against the spectre of relegation.

They’ve survived in League Two for the last three seasons. And you can only dodge the bullet so many times.

Managers have changed, players have been shipped out, new players signed, even the owners and the previous regime has been replaced.

Bright new dawns each time, yet the outcome and outlook remains the same.

Appointing Hignett was supposed to be a long-term solution, the idea being that Hartlepool United Football Club would have it’s own identity, a grand plan and a firm blueprint.

Instead the season turned into a mishmash of hope, despair and disappointment which never really got going.

When Colin Cooper was appointed boss in 2013, with Hignett as his right-hand man, the new manager’s mantra was simple: League Two, he insisted, was all about what went on in both penalty areas.

Pool’s biggest failings this season have been in both boxes.

At the start of the season they scored plenty in one end, conceding plenty in the other. Then they stopped scoring and kept on conceding.

Hignett hated playing 4-4-2, always preferring 4-3-3. When he introduced it last season it worked like a dream.

Billy Paynter was a rampaging force in the middle, scoring and ruining centre-halves, while flanked by an electric Nathan Thomas on the left who tormented full-backs for fun.

They won seven games from 11 outings, running the opposition ragged with a free-flowing, quick-passing game.

But after beating York to more or less send the Minstermen down, Pools season folded. Four games left, four games to see out.

Hignett wanted those games to try and implement different ideas, while making sure the players didn’t switch off and eye up their summer holiday.

Instead, they lost their last four games.

The box formation in midfield adopted on the final day at Plymouth was a disaster, with players unsure of their position and jobs.

It was asking too much of League Two footballers to play that way.

The summer was about adding goals to a squad short on firepower, and to compliment Paynter and Thomas in came Padraig Amond (38 goals for Grimsby), Nicky Deverdics (15 goals, 18 assists for Dover) and Lewis Alessandra.

Amond has grafted away, scoring nine times while often playing in a system which hasn’t suited him. 

Deverdics has yet to show the form of last season, while Alessandra too often flatters to deceive.

Pools have failed to score in seven of their last nine games.

The less said of his other key signing, centre-half Toto Nsiala, the better.

Liam Donnelly was an astute defensive recruit once the season started, the Irishman impressing every week after his arrival from Fulham.

But there’s been plenty of signings who are nowhere near the first-team, and can Pools really carry the likes of Jake Orrell, Harly Wise, Ben Pollock and Issac Assenso when there’s already a group of young professionals at the club who don’t get closer to the starting XI?

The last teenager to be signed, Devante Rodney from Sheffield Wednesday, didn’t inspire Hignett and he was frustrated at the number of low quality trialists who were arriving at the club and taking part in training.

It got to the extent that he was ready to walk away from his position before Christmas, because of what was happening above and around him, but decided to stay on and take the team to Port Vale in the FA Cup.

That day was an unmitigated disaster as Pools rolled over to a pitiful 4-0 defeat and the manager was sent to the stands leading to a second touchline ban of the season.

Hignett’s previous coaching role was at Middlesbrough and he was soon discovering that working with a Championship club with Premier League aspirations and beliefs was a long way away from where he was at.

Moore had exactly the same frustrations that he was having to tell players the same information day in, day out on the training ground because it didn’t sink in.

He spoke about stripping information down to the most basic levels. It still didn’t get his message across.

The style of football may have been appealing on the eye, but it wasn’t working. Passing the ball around for fun didn’t bring much cheer.

Pools were found out by the opposition who of late were happy to see them keep possession, passing sideways, backwards, and sideways again without having the ability or eye to play the ball in behind packed defences.

Their last two games, both 1-0 defeats to Grimsby and Crawley, followed the same script.

At Accrington, in a 2-2 draw two weeks back, Pools were a bit more direct and Hignett spoke of the willingness to play more longer balls into the opposition area. The idea didn’t hang around for long.

Hignett was also working, in recent weeks especially, against an uncertain financial backdrop.

Chairman Coxall insists circumstances aren’t as bad as things are being pushed by some sections of the supporters and subsequently being plastered over internet forums.

The next manager will have the same issues to contend with as Hignett and Pools have 20 games to go. It’s the same number Hignett had when he took over from Moore last season.

'Plus ca change' - the more things change at Hartlepool United the more they stay the same.

  • What do you think of Hignett's reign? Do you agree with Nick? Email echosport@nne.co.uk