GRAEME LEE should have strike duo Mark Cullen and Luke Molyneux both available for tomorrow evening’s home game with Rochdale.

Lee got his Pools reign off to the perfect start on Saturday with a 1-0 win at Lincoln City that set up an FA Cup third-round tie with Championship side Blackpool.

Attention switches to the league programme tomorrow night, with Pools desperately needing to arrest a slump that has seen them slide to 17th position in the table on the back of five successive defeats.

Rochdale are in similarly poor form, having failed to win seven of their last eight matches in all competitions, and Pools should be boosted by the presence of both Cullen and Molyneux despite the pair having ongoing injury issues.

Cullen fell awkwardly while challenging for a header during Saturday’s FA Cup win at Sincil Bank, and was forced off with an ankle problem. Thankfully, though, Lee is confident the problem is not too serious, with Cullen having been replaced before he was able to inflict any serious damage.

“He’s okay. I wanted to freshen it up and bring some more legs on up top,” said the Pools boss, who left a coaching role in Middlesbrough’s academy to take on his first managerial position. “They (Cullen and Molyneux) both put a shift in.

“We asked him (Cullen) to give us five more minutes, and we he did have a little niggle, we just thought, ‘Let’s do it now’.

"But there’s no worries. He wasn’t on the physio bed, so he’s good.”

Molyneux played the full 90 minutes against the Lincoln, but the former Sunderland forward went into Saturday’s game having been forced off at half-time of the previous weekend’s league defeat to Port Vale.

Having felt a tight calf against Port Vale, Molyneux sat out the Papa John’s Trophy win at Sheffield Wednesday that proved to be the final game of Antony Sweeney’s caretaker reign, but having come through the Lincoln game unscathed, he should be able to start again tomorrow.

“He’s got no problems,” said Lee. “We asked him after about 75 minutes, and we were shouting on to him. You just want a bit of an honest answer at that stage.

"Do you still feel fresh because we need those legs on there? But he worked his socks off and he got through the game and looked like he had no problems, so it was pleasing.”