NEALE Cooper admits he is ready to further boost his squad in the next five days.
Cooper takes his Hartlepool United side to Peterborough for the big kick-off on Saturday and the new boss believes more additions - he has signed four player already this summer - are needed.
Paul Robinson and Andrew Jordan joined last week, following Micky Nelson and Marco Gabbiadini to Victoria Park, while Cooper and right-hand man Martin Scott have also been casting their eyes on a string of trialists.
Gavin Strachan - son of Cooper's old Aberdeen teammate Gordon - impressed in 45 minutes of Friday's 6-0 thumping by Newcastle and he will stay at Pool in a bid to earn a deal.
Mark Tinkler is struggling to be fit for Saturday after suffering a groin strain in the friendly draw with Sunderland almost a fortnight ago.
"Gavin only joined us on Friday morning, trained and then played,'' said Cooper. "We miss Mark Tinkler in there and I'm just hoping he will be OK.
"But Gavin played well in the middle, he didn't give the ball away and passed it well. I like what I saw of him. He will be with us for a while and we will have a good look at him.
"If there are players who we feel will bring that little bit of class to the team we will have a look at them.
"I think we might need something extra in the centre mid area. We spoke last week about another four or five coming in - that's two down so maybe there's a couple more to come.
"I thought Robinson looked lively against Newcastle and he will be a big asset.''
Cooper was blown away by Newcastle's performance and approach to Friday's game. "I have never seen football played like that for many a year,'' he admitted.
"That was total football and I would gladly pay to watch that every week.
"To be honest we expected it as well. I spoke to John Carver and he said sometimes you feel their attitude is a bit off for games like that - they are not up for it, but that wasn't the case and everyone of them wanted to play.
"It was a lesson for us in keeping the ball, using it in the right areas and attacking all over the park.
"But saying that I thought we didn't do too badly out there at times.''
Read more about Hartlepool here.
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