Dover Athletic boss Chris Kinnear praises "magnificent" display against Hartlepool
06:00, 10 December 2017
Chris Kinnear hailed his side’s performance after Dover thrashed Hartlepool 4-0 in the National League on Saturday.
Mitch Pinnock and Ryan Bird both scored braces in their comfortable home win. To make matters worse for the away side former Dover player, Nicky Deverdics, was sent off in the closing stages for an apparent elbow on Connor Essam.
Kinnear says his side didn’t give Hartlepool a look in as they moved up to fourth in the table.
He said: “We are playing well and scoring so many goals. We create lots of chances even when we aren’t winning games. We create more than the other side normally.
“We didn’t give them a chance today and converted ours.
“Everybody with the club is doing the best they can and I thought they were magnificent.”
Following Wrexham’s 4-1 defeat against Macclesfield, Dover now have the best defensive record in the league conceding just 17 goals in 24 games.
However, Kinnear says he doesn’t set his sides out to be defensive and you could see the evidence of that yesterday.
He said: “We are not a defensive side. Last year we were the second highest scorers in the league and the year before we were third.
“We try to score goals. We are getting chances at the other end, it’s making it exciting for supporters but also our opponents aren’t getting chances.”
The stars of the show today were Mitch Pinnock and Ryan Bird, who each bagged themselves two goals. Bird moves up to 11 goals for the season having not scored since October.
“He (Pinnock) is only a young lad. He’s now taking his football very seriously. It took a while to get him to do that and when he does he has a lot of ability and hopefully he will carry that on.
“It’s still a long season, I’m sure the other lads won’t let him drop his standards.
"It’s taken him (Bird) joint-top scorer in the league now I think. Last year we had the top scorer, Birdy has now got to match what Ricky Miller did.
“He wants to score and he’s looking really fit at the moment. He deserves it. He’s the old man of the side but is good for the other players.”
