ONE defeat, amid an afternoon of controversy, will not derail Hartlepool United’s play-off ambitions.

Pools lost at home to Ebbsfleet on Saturday, a result which leaves them a point short of the top seven.

Repercussions from the game are yet to be determined, as two accusations of racism were levied towards Pools supporters in the second-half.

Both clubs will be charged with failing to control their players following the melee which followed the final whistle, when boss Dave Challinor was shown a red card along with the visitor's substitute Ayo Obileye

The club’s video highlights package clearly shows visiting Jermaine McGlashan deliberately and firmly heading the ball into the crowd on the Neale Cooper Stand terrace as he was lobbed the ball to take a throw in.

The wing-back came in for plenty of stick for his time-delaying actions and he was one of those to lodge a complaint about racism, which the club is in the process of investigating.

Pools’ boss had set his players a wins target to make the play-offs and he said: “I do think there will be a points figure we need.

"What we've done on Saturday is miss an opportunity.

"But our next opportunity comes next week. Only until we run out of games in terms of the points I think we are going to need

“It’s not been a win we can tick off, we have got no points but we've got to move on and go into a difficult game at Sutton; it's a different challenge, a different surface, but go there really positive and look to win and absolutely do that.

"It's not a million miles of a gap.

"There will be results like this that people will look at and didn't expect to happen and that will continue to happen like not does in this league.

"We've got to concentrate on us.

"Today was one of those occasions when we've not got what we wanted from the game and you have to come in and start looking at other results in other games and how they affect us.

"It's a lot better looking when you've take care of your own business and got three points.’’