HARTLEPOOL UNITED aim to appoint their next permanent manager in the coming days.

After a round of interviews last week, Pools’ new owner and chairman Raj Singh, along with director of football Craig Hignett, have been working on their first key appointment.

Four were interviewed last week, Steve Watson and Alun Armstrong are known to be in their thoughts, while Hignett has also been doing plenty of groundwork behind the scenes on possible transfer targets.

Relegation fears were erased two weeks ago when Pools beat Orient at Victoria Park and Pools ended the season with a victory at Tranmere Rovers on Saturday.

Matthew Bates won five times in 13 games in caretaker command and wants to be named boss. Players have been impressed with the former centre-half and the work done by his assistants Ged McNamee and Ross Turnbull, who have both been working for free since being asked to help out.

In an interview on the club website, Singh praised the job Bates has done.

“Results have been, if I can use the word, unbelievable with the squad they had to pick from, the injuries they had to deal with and I think Matty has done a brilliant job – along with Ged and Ross- and I would like to thank them for the job they have done,’’ he said.

“If we had gone down then the business plan we had would have had to be scrapped, and turned into plan B. Everything changes in that case, so I’d like to thank them and the players for what they have done.

“When you look at everything, I knew this was a well-supported club and when I looked at the figures they have been the fourth highest supported club in the league which says a lot given the turmoil.’’

And Singh paid tribute to the supporters, with attendances at Victoria Park remaining high and almost 750 travelling to Tranmere at the weekend.

He said: “Supporters are going to be so important to the club. If there’s no fans, there’s no clubs. It’s a nice, tidy compact ground which can be intimidating and they have a massive part to play.

“I don’t want to give the same, boring old messages about going on a journey 0- it’s been said before and they all know what needs to be done.

“I don’t need to start a sales pitch. Hopefully I say the right things and the revenue coming into the club makes it stronger and is spent on the team, which makes a winning team. It’s simple really.

“We’ve done a lot of work before we took over, speaking to agents and players so we are already excited about the players out there and available, but we won’t do anything until we have a permanent manager in place.’’