SAM COLLINS is hopeful that Ronnie Moore will be back in the Hartlepool United dug out tomorrow.

The Pools’ boss is in Spain, where his daughter is in hospital after suffering from pneumonia, so Collins is overseeing training and preparations for the trip to York.

But there are signs that the condition of Moore’s daughter is improving and Collins, who led Pools to victory at Fleetwood on Tuesday evening, said: “The latest update I got from Ronnie was last night and he said her oxygen levels had started to improve.

“They were hoping this morning that it will improve again and that she is on the mend.

“Everyone knows it's been a worrying time for Ronnie and his family but hopefully she's beginning to improve now and hopefully they'll get her out of the hospital as soon as possible.’’

Collins, who has been assisted by the club’s head of youth Ian McGuckin this week in Moore’s absence, added: “We'll see how things progress and how Charlotte improves over the next 24 hours and take it from there.

“Everything is a little bit up in the air [in terms of what's going to happen with who's running the team]. We're just hoping she gets better, that's the most important thing.

“If it means me looking after things on Saturday then we'll just get on with it. The lads need to concentrate on the football and we'll prepare as normal and make sure we're ready for Saturday.’’

Pools have started the season well, with successive victories without conceding a goal.

Collins, number two to Moore under normal circumstances, has been impressed with the attitude and outlook of his players.

Ten new signings arrived over the summer and Collins admitted: “It's been good - the most pleasing thing has been the attitude of the players and how hard they are working for each other

“On top of that we have got two clean sheets and two wins - the challenge now is to keep that going.

“The big thing is keeping clean sheets, home and away. The more times you do that the better chances you have, we only had four away wins last season and that's something we need to improve on.

“If we want to have a lot better season than we did last time there are a lot of areas we need to improve.

“We are well aware of that and that is what we are intending to do.’’

York started the season with a 3-0 defeat at Wycombe, but beat Bradford on penalties in the Capital One Cup in midweek.

Facing Pools in goal tomorrow will be Scott Flinders, who left Victoria Park in the summer after making 272 appearances, scoring once, for Pools.

He and Collins were regularly part of the Victoria Park rearguard and Collins said: “It will be good to see him, he had a good few years here. He was great for us.

“But these things happen in football, people move on and personnel changes. He's gone to a new club and I'm sure he'll be keen to do well.

“He was different class when he was here, he's a good lad and a good pro – but that won't change the fact that we'll go there looking to put a few goals past him.

“Obviously we've had a big turnover and there are a lot of lads who he'll not know a great deal about so hopefully we can use that to our advantage.’’

Tickets are on sale until 3pm today for Pools fans. There’s around 300 tickets remaining of the 2,000 allocation.