FC Halifax Town: We can beat the drop, insists Clarke

Tuesday’s 2-1 defeat to Leyton Orient means Halifax won just once in eight games, and have not won in the league for over a month.

But when asked if he remained confident Town could stay up, Clarke said: “Massively. We’ve got the characters, we’ve got the players, but we just need everyone to perform on the day.”

Town now face a crunch clash with Dagenham and Redbridge at The Shay on Saturday.

When asked what will get The Shaymen out of their poor run, Clarke, speaking before the departure of manager Billy Heath this week, said: “Hard work, determination, fighting until the end, being positive and playing in the right areas. It’s just all the basics.

“We need to get back to basics, winning football games and not over-thinking it, not worrying about getting beaten.

“Every game is massive until we start getting that gap bigger. Every game is like it was at the back end of last season.

“The lads know what it’s all about, it’s just a different part of the table. But it means just as much - a promotion and avoiding relegation.

“At the start of the season that was our expectation. We had a really good start, which put us massively high on confidence, but it just switched, and we’ve gone further down and down.

“But we need to change that as quickly as we can.”

Billy Heath’s side has seen the gap between them and the bottom four gradually reduce over recent weeks, with 21st placed Solihull winning four of their last six matches.

“The last three or four weeks we’ve been looking below us, but results have generally gone our way, which has been fortunate,” Clarke said.

“But we just have to be at least the fifth-worst team in the league. If they keep losing we’re fine, but it’s in our own hands and we need to get some points on the table.

“We’re trying to get Shaun Tuton back to full fitness, but he’ll get us some goals.

“It wasn’t really Tom Denton’s night on Tuesday, we know what Matty Kosylo and Josh Macdonald can do - they’re our outlets but they haven’t been themselves in the last couple of weeks.

“But we know what we need to do, it’s just getting that confidence.

“I thought the fans were good on Tuesday. I heard a couple of negative comments, which you’re going to get, but we need the fans to stick with us all the way to the end of the season.”