"Everything has to be better," says Town boss Millington ahead of trip to Woking

Town boss Chris Millington has warned his side that "everything has to be better" when they take on promotion contenders Woking on Tuesday night.
Chris MillingtonChris Millington
Chris Millington

The Shaymen laboured to a 0-0 draw at Dagenham and Redbridge on Saturday, with Sam Johnson making a last-gasp penalty save.

Halifax are ending the season in good form, with Saturday's draw meaning they have only lost once in 13 games, but Millington is aware that performance levels must improve tomorrow night.

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"Everything has to be better - defending, our possession play has to be better, we've got to counter-attack more successfully than we have on Saturday and we've got to defend the counter better than we did," said the Town boss.

"No bit of Saturday would be acceptable going into a trip to Woking, especially when they're driving for third place."

Woking can go third in the table if they win after what has been a fantastic season for The Cards.

"They've had that Darren Sarll effect, they're well organised, it's a team full of experience, full of athletes and they work to a system incredibly hard," Millington said.

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"I think it helps they lay that style of football on a tight pitch and they're where they are in the league for a reason so it's going to be a huge challenge going into that game.

"But I think this group has proved time and time again that they're actually better when there's a real point to prove, so we'll certainly make them aware they've got something to prove going up against what could be the third best team in the league come the end of the season."

Town only had three substitutes on the bench on Saturday.

When asked if there would be any more players available for the trip to Woking, Millington said: "We'll have Tom Scott back from his loan at Ashton, so he'll be available for the bench.

"There's one or two who are possibles to be involved, but at the minute it's a minimum of four who are available."

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Millington opted to start Rob Harker and Mani Dieseruvwe up-front on Saturday having hinted that could be an option for how Town could line up at Wembley.

When asked if he had seen enough from the system at Dagenham to give it another go, Millington said: "There's a definite benefit to have two out-and-out strikers up top, so that's something we always look at as a possibility.

"You've seen us go to a different form of 3-5-2 a few times in recent games.

"But as we switched back to the more familiar shape we've been in more recently later in the game on Saturday, you saw how that helped us get up the pitch with a bit more quality at times.

"So nothing's written off at this stage."

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On how much the FA Trophy final will play a part in his team selections in Town's final two league games of the season, Millington said: "There's so much to consider because we want to prepare the players as best as we can, we also need to make sure we protect as many of them as well as we can.

"We also need to make sure we get a decent amount of practice in the shape we anticipate being in going into Wembley because there isn't the opportunity to play a lot of games once the season's over.

"There are some oppositions we can play but there's nothing like a competitive fixture to be able to really test the durability of a formation and the players we've got available in that formation.

"So there's a lot to consider but our main objective initially is to make sure we finish as high as we can and if we can go unbeaten to the end of the season, with a couple of clean sheets, even better."