PAUL Hartley will begin his role Hartlepool United manager next Monday and will be looking to assemble his squad for next season's big push up the League Two table with Pools waiting to see how the new boss tackles his work.

Hartley, who’s appointment was announced a week agoafter a month long recruitment process, left Cove Rangers to take over at the League Two side after three successful years in Scotland. Their most recent campaign saw them promoted to the Scottish Championship losing just three games all season.  

Despite being at the age of 45, Hartley has been in the dugout for over ten years and has overseen five promotions during his time as a manager.  

Now tasked with spearheading Pools charge up the League Two table next season, his first task will be assembling his squad with several players futures currently up in the air.

Hartley will be looking to emulate his success from Cove Rangers but how did he set up his title winning side? What sort of team can the Pools fans expect?  

In an interview with Open Goal back in March earlier this year, Hartley gave an insight into his workings as the man in charge. “I think you work the way that you were brought up and the players that I have" he said.

“If you’ve not got the players, it’s very hard to play in a certain style that where you can dominate games possession wise. You can dominate games with possession but there has to be an end purpose.  

“You’ve got look to score goals, play with speed. It’s not all pretty all the time because sometimes you’ve got to go a little bit longer and more direct. How do you win a football match? People say ‘we had 70% possession but we drew today. That is no use to you. 

“You’ve got to have the right players and I feel as though we have the right players. With certain systems, how do we train? We train to play. But at the end of the day, it’s down to the players how they go and perform.” 

As well as achieving league success, Cove Rangers managed to upset the odds in the Scottish Cup by reaching the fourth round of the competition by beating Queen of the South from the division above. 

They pushed Premier League side Hibernian all the way to extra-time before losing the game 1-0. 

“We were going to go toe-to-toe with them, I said that to the players. We ended up changing two systems that night” Hartley continued.  

“I played 4-1-4-1 and it wasn’t working and then I went 3-4-3 because we’ve got two systems that we try and go and play. That had been drilled into the players.  

“I felt we could toe-to-toe with Shaun’s (Maloney) team. I knew Shaun’s team would like to play so it suited us in terms of the style and how they worked. They wanted to build it out slowly so we could go and press. 

“What happened to us in the end was we fell short. Our legs just went, we didn’t have enough in the tank and didn’t take our chances. I was proud of the players and it was a good advert for our league because it is a good league.” 

One of the biggest transitions Hartley will have to make going from Cove Rangers to Hartlepool is going from part-time to full-time work. However, the former Hearts midfielder won’t find that to be a problem and admitted he still conducted his work as a full-time boss.  

“We train two nights a week. We try and give them enough information but don’t overload them. You know what it’s like. The lads are coming in straight from their work.  

“They are coming straight here so our sessions have got to be bright, sharp and they have to enjoy it but they’ve got to work hard.  

“They have to have a game plan in their head what they’re playing on Saturday. As soon as they come in on a Tuesday night, there is a game plan their straight away with who we are playing because we’ve tried to have a good structure at the club and how we want to work.” 

When asked whether he conducted his work like a full-time manager, he replied: “Yeah, it’s just the way I’ve always worked since I’ve played.  

“If you get into management and you don’t work, you’ve got no chance and you’ll fail. I love going to games. Most of my stuff during the week is a laptop watching the opposition. Games might be two-and-a-half hours away and that’s the life we have but I love going to games and meeting people. That is part of the job.”