Hartlepool manager Graeme Lee admitted his side “lacked energy” as they drew 0-0 at home to Leyton Orient.
Neither side could break the deadlock, with Orient’s Ruel Sotirou and Pools forward Joe White having the best chances of the game.
Lee saw his side lose to League One Rotherham on penalties in the semi-finals of the EFL Trophy on Wednesday night after drawing 2-2 in normal time, and he was disappointed he did not get a reaction.
He said: “It was flat. Flat all over. I’m disappointed because it was an opportunity today, I thought, we had two home games on the bounce where we could go and get six points on the board and see where the season takes us.
“You look at Wednesday night, it was a worry going into the game – am I going to get the reaction or am I going to get a disappointed reaction from that performance and the disappointment from the result.
“I was hoping our team were going to reflect on what they had put in on Wednesday night and try and go again, because of the atmosphere and everything about it.
“I was looking for a response in the sense of – forget the disappointment of Wednesday – let’s go again, but unfortunately I got the other side that I worried about.
“We just lacked energy, we lacked drive, we were reactive instead of anticipative of things. We didn’t pick the second ball up, didn’t hurt them enough, didn’t create enough, it was one of those performances where it wasn’t an enjoyable game to watch.
“You take the point, but if you perform and don’t create enough chances you make sure the other team don’t score, so we’ll take the point, but it’s not a performance we enjoyed.”
New Leyton Orient boss Richie Wellens felt he saw “a massive improvement” in his side, despite the draw extending Orient’s winless run to 14 games.
Wellens, who was appointed manager on Wednesday, admitted he would have taken a point against Hartlepool beforehand.
He said: “I’ve watched them (Leyton Orient) obviously over the last couple of weeks and there was a massive improvement, a lot more calmness to us.
“We’ve come away from home to a team who have not lost in a long time here and Graeme’s got them playing really, really well. He took a team who is heading to the Championship to a draw on Wednesday, so they are a really good outfit here.
“I think the first 30 minutes they couldn’t get out of their own half.
“My only criticism was that we need to score in that moment because we had some really good opportunities. We’ve seen little patterns of play that we want to work on, but a clean sheet is obviously really good.
“If you were offering me that beforehand after two days’ training and a long journey up, I would have taken it.”