Mvoto is all action hero

FOX IN THE BOX: Jean-Yves Mvoto (left) shows a striker’s instinct to give Athletic a lead they never surrendered.

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Hartlepool 0, Athletic 1

Defender stars at both ends as Latics grind out a win

ATHLETIC reverted to old-fashioned means to secure an excellent result and claim a first triumph at Victoria Park since before manager Paul Dickov was even born.

It was 1970 that Latics last won here. And though the game has moved on in many ways since, Jean-Yves Mvoto – the team’s scoring hero – played in a brutally-effective way that wouldn’t have been unusual among the flying studs and mud of the game’s hard men of yesteryear.

The imposing 23-year-old Parisian has had a mixed season to this point.

Here, though, he was everything Dickov and his coaching staff want him to be: dominant in the air and clean and effective on the ground without giving away a single free-kick.

Alongside him, in the absence of James Tarkowski in a squad stretched to breaking point, was Reece Brown.

The loaned Manchester United utility man has not found a position to call his own as yet in this Athletic side. He may have now.

Given their run of recent defeats this was ultimately something of a stroll for Athletic - and without them ever really finding top gear.

Athletic took the lead in a game for the first time since the last-gasp victory at Bramall Lane.

Chris Taylor lofted in a free-kick from a central area, midway through the Pools half, and Mvoto got just enough on a scuffed left-footed effort to nudge the ball back across Flinders and inside his left-hand post.

Hartlepool had two chances to level in the first half.

Athletic’s defending was rarely elegant in the first period, but no less effective. It got more assured as the game wore on and Hartlepool, for all their neat approach play, gradually ran out of attacking inspiration.




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