DAVE Challinor says he and his Hartlepool United side won't be fooled by Salford City's stuttering start to their League Two campaign when they meet this afternoon.

Pools make the trip to the Peninsula Stadium to face the early season promotion favourites managed by Gary Bowyer.

While Salford are still one of the favourites to go up, they currently sit 17th in the League Two table with three wins from 11.

On the flip side, Pools are eighth in the table and lie just outside the play-off places but have failed to win an away game so far this season.

“Surprised is probably the wrong expression" Challinor told BBC Radio Tees Sport.

“If you looked at teams on paper and teams at the start of the season, where you’d go ‘they might be up there’ or ‘they have a chance’ then they’d be one that with the investment and the openness in terms of ambition of where they want to be, you’d have put them higher than where they are.

“But we’re only a quarter of the way through and they will look at having missed players, through suspension and things, and look to put a run together. That can happen at any time.

“The way the table is, the nature of the table is that two or three wins completely changes the outlook of where you are at and that’s what they will be hoping to do.

“From our perspective, we know it will be tough game but one that we go there, regardless of our away results and performances have been good in my opinion, we go their full of confidence and looking to win and that’s not going to change."