HARTLEPOOL United have been dealt another blow after Neill Byrne completed a move to Tranmere Rovers signalling the third key departure this week.

The 29-year-old, who was on Pools pre-season trip to Portugal, completed a switch to the League Two side for an undisclosed fee and signs a one-year deal at Prenton Park.

Byrne’s departure has kept the revolving door at Pools spinning with Omar Bogle sealing a permanent move to fellow League Two side Newport County while Timi Odusina signed a three-year deal with Bradford City at the start of the week after the expiration of his contract at Pools.

Last season’s top scorer Luke Molyneux also left the club last week after rejecting the club’s offer of a new deal to join Doncaster Rovers.

While Pools have suffered a significant loss of numbers in such a short space of time, they have moved to bring five new players to the club in goalkeeper Kyle Letheren, defenders Euan Murray and Alex Lacey along with midfield duo Mohammed Niang and Jake Hastie. All new signings have come north of the border from Scotland.

Manager Paul Hartley addressed the recent departures and was quick to explain the reasons behind their most recent departure.

Hartley said: “The first conversation I had with Neill’s agent when I first came into the job was that Neill wanted to go back home for family reasons. When I spoke to Neill when he came back, that’s what his decision was to get closer to his fiancée and his family down in Liverpool.

“As I said before, we need to keep players happy and that they want to be here. I don’t want unhappy players and we said that to Neill. He’s a great lad, he didn’t cause me any bother but he wanted to go somewhere else. We want to keep players at the club that want to be here and that are happy. We don’t want to keep unhappy players. He moves on with our best wishes.”

Pools are due to return back to England today having spent the last five days at a pre-season training camp in Portugal.