HARTLEPOOL United boss Chris Turner has blasted the boo-boys who singled out young striker Jermaine Easter.

Easter came on as a first half substitute and never really settled into the clash with Macclesfield. The 20-year-old did find himself in goalscoring positions but sections of fans inside Victoria Park turned against the young Welshman.

And Turner could not believe the reaction towards his quick frontman, who has been tipped for a bright future by his boss.

"What annoyed me the most is the crowds reaction to young Jermaine Easter. I'm absolutely disgusted by it," said Turner.

"How that is going to help the team and improve the young footballer I don't know.

"It's the first time I've been disappointed with the crowd. The team didn't play particularly well, but why take it out on young Jermaine Easter?

"Jermaine probably didn't even realise it, but I did and I thought our crowd were better than that.

"Encouragement is better than booing and when he is on a break away and you hear boos I think that is terrible. Shocking.

"Things didn't go right for him and he missed a good couple of chances but still he does not deserve that sort of treatment.

"There are certain things in Jermaine's game where he can help himself and we all know that. But that is not the right way to go and it surprises me about the crowd."

Easter came on after 38 minutes for Eifion Williams, who had to go off with a hamstring injury.

Williams had looked quite bright but he was lacking a yard of pace when he was trying to latch onto a couple of balls over the top of the Silkmen's defence.

But Turner is confident the former Torquay front-man will recover in time to play against his old club on Saturday.

"In the warm-up he felt his hamstring and you could see he was thinking before he made his move," he said.

"I thought it would be better to get him off and get him some treatment over the next four or five days. He hasn't pulled anything; it's just tightening up."

Turner was also not happy with the way his side's 100 per cent record was ended.

He said: "It wasn't a good performance and it was one of the worst performances we have had here for a number of months. But that result was always going to be round the corner - that's football."

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