FC Halifax Town: “It’s going to be a tough six days for us” says Wild ahead of south coast double-header

FC Halifax Town boss Pete Wild says he will have to manage his squad carefully as The Shaymen head into a “relentless” set of fixtures.
Pete Wild. Photo: Marcus BranstonPete Wild. Photo: Marcus Branston
Pete Wild. Photo: Marcus Branston

Town thrashed Barnet 5-2 on Wednesday night and now face a long trip south to take on Weymouth in Saturday’s tea-time game, which will be screened live on BT Sport.

Halifax face another long journey to Aldershot on Tuesday night before hosting Eastleigh next Saturday and then visiting Solihull next Tuesday.

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“It’s a quick turnaround, it’s another game where we need to go and impose our style of play on them,” Wild said of the Weymouth match.

“I need to dust the boys down, we’ll travel down on Friday and be ready to hopefully back that up.

“It’s going to be a tough six days for us with Weymouth and then back down to Aldershot on Tuesday, and I need to make sure that I make calculated decisions in terms of team selection and then make sure that when we turn up, we turn up again and keep making improvements like you saw on Wednesday.”

When asked if he is likely to change his side for each of the games coming up to keep players fresh, the Town boss said: “I don’t know, you don’t want to break up a winning team but three games in six days is relentless, a lot of travel as well.

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“So I need to speak to my physio, my staff and my players and make calculated decisions.”

Wild will be without forward Jamie Allen for Saturday’s game due to a knee injury, and without skipper Nathan Clarke for the next month due to an eye problem.

“Jamie will be out for in and around seven days, he twisted his knee in the first-half of the game at Sutton but was able to complete it,” Wild said.

“He was back out running again on Wednesday night but he was still getting a bit of pain so that might take us into next week with Jamie.

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“Clarkey’s is a little bit worse than first thought. We’re looking in and around a month at the moment but we’re still waiting because he has to go back each week and see if the problem’s died down.

“He’s the skipper, he’s been excellent since the start of the season but it’s now the next man up and we’ve got three lads who played on Wednesday who are more than capable of filling his shoes, and I thought they did that.”

Town were highly impressive in their win over Barnet on Wednesday, but Wild said it’s now up to the players to build on that performance.

“It’s easier said than done, it’s not Football Manager,” he said.

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“They’ve got to turn up again. When they walk over that white line, it’s up to them.

“We can prepare them, we prepare them as well as possible, we give them as much information as we can, and when they walk over that white line it’s up to them, and they’ve got to go and deliver.

“They delivered on Wednesday and they’ve got to deliver again on Saturday.”

Wild added: “I think we can get better. I’m always pushing for the perfect game.

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“There’s certainly four, fix, six things that could be better than Wednesday and that’s what, slowly but surely over the next few weeks, we’ve got to keep working on and keep getting better at.

“But we’ve got a group of men that want to learn and want to implement a style of football.

“That’s what I wanted - I wanted to recruit men and I wanted to recruit people that wanted to learn and wanted to do things our way.

“If you get those two things, you’ve got a chance.”

There will be no coverage of the game on the Courier website or from Town writer Tom Scargill across social media on Saturday.
This is because, upon requesting media accreditation for the game from Weymouth, the Courier was told “due to very limited availability of space due to the televised game we are unable to provide a media pass”.

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