JOHN Askey believes Hartlepool United might need to win half of their remaining games to avoid the drop - but says last week's late show against Walsall proves his players have the stomach for the fight.

Pools scored twice in stoppage time to rescue an unlikely point in Askey's first game in charge, and head for Tranmere today looking for the first of five or six wins that the boss believes is necessary between now and the end of the season.

Today's opponents did Hartlepool a favour in midweek when they beat Crawley, who still have three games in hand on Pools.

But Askey would rather be in Hartlepool's position of having points on the board than games to catch-up with.

"You can't help but look at results elsewhere," he admitted to BBC Tees.

"We probably need about five or six wins. That's what we need to concentrate on. There'll be highs and lows, it will be topsy-turvy, that's when you have to keep your nerve and forget about what's going on with other clubs.

"We just have to put everything into Saturday's game, if we do that and get a result then great, if not you move onto the next one.

"We can't rely on other clubs, we have to do it ourselves."

Askey has enjoyed his first full week on the training pitch with the players.

He said: "It's been really good. Obviously when I came in I was trying to get to know the players. I hadn't seen a great deal of them other than on video, so to get to work with them was good. To have this free week, hopefully it will pay off for us.

"Teams have games in hand but they'll be playing Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, a lot of travelling, injuries will crop up and suspensions, so we have to take advantage, hopefully get a few players back, train harder and it could hopefully play to our benefit."

Pools this week confirmed the appointment of Darren Kelly as the club's new sporting director.

Askey said: "Football has changed now.

"The manager used to do everything but now you need someone like Darren to help with recruitment, the general running of the club. It should be a big help for me.

"I've not really had that before, I had it a bit at Port Vale, but I think it will work well. Darren has a lot of knowledge of the game and good contacts."