HARTLEPOOL United’s week has been hampered by the weather, with the squad today training at Victoria Park.

The regular training base at East Durham College in Peterlee has been affected by the wet weather.

Pools trained indoors at the start of the week and will tomorrow have a session at Aston Villa’s training ground en route to Solihull.

Boss Dave Challinor, speaking at his press conference this morning, said: “Weather will disrupt us at this level. The Sports Domes were great on Monday, we would use that again and it’s about a cool down. Tuesday is a main session, at the Beacon of Light, still windy up on the top level, but we embedded some principles.

“Wednesday was a day off and we train at the ground on Thursday which allows us to embed principles on the grass.

“We know this will be a tough one but we have to be expansive how we play and we travel tomorrow and train at Aston Villa on the way down which we know will be decent.’’

He added: “Weather has been horrendous so it’s a mixed week in training. Inside Monday and Tuesday, probably doesn’t help anyone in what you want to do.

“But winning on Saturday and everyone comes in happier and looking forward to training. They’ve all been bright and we get what we can out of sessions and put things together for the weekend.’’

Challinor set his players a target of eight wins from 12 to make the play-offs this season and joked: “I’d like 12 wins from the last 12 games never mind eight!’’