FC Halifax Town 0-1 Maidenhead: We couldn’t cope with third game in tough week, says Town boss Fullarton

The Shaymen were unable to build on impressive results gained in last Saturday’s 2-0 win over Solihull and Tuesday’s 0-0 draw with Ebbsfleet, as they slumped to a disappointing defeat - their first at home in 2019.

Maidenhead secured the points through Ayo Obileye’s second-half penalty, the first home league goal Town have conceded in more than 10 hours.

“I thought we were disappointing,” said Fullarton.

“I think the impact of the previous two games, in which we had excellent results and reasonably good performances - it showed today.

“Not having the ability to freshen it due to injuries (to Michael Duckworth and Niall Maher), and the transfer window passing without being able to bring anybody in, it showed today.

“We’re bitterly disappointed to lose the game. They had the penalty, and another shot that hit the post, but other than that, they were like ourselves, where we never worked the goalkeeper.

“It faded into apathy.”

When asked if he saw Town’s jaded display coming this week, Fullarton said: “It is something you’re always wary of. In an ideal situation, you’d be in a position to rotate, to freshen, energise, but we weren’t.

“It’s asking the same players, who have performed excellently over a period of time but in particular this week against two teams pushing for promotion, (to go again), and today it showed.”

When asked if he would have liked to have added to his squad before this week’s transfer deadline, Fullarton said: “It’s not a case of liking to bring players in, it’s a case of the players we’ve lost in certain areas and the ones we’ve got on long-term injuries impacting the squad.

“We’re repeating ourselves regularly on it, and it’s a fact. When you lose certain players in certain positions, you don’t have the competition for places or the selection decision, and it impacts your preparation and it meant with having three difficult games in a week, we didn’t show that we could cope with that.”

The Shay pitch didn’t seem to help either side to play flowing football.

“No it doesn’t,” Fullarton said, “but you can’t make that an excuse. The pitch is huge, which is great, but three games in a week, it does take it’s toll.

“If you look at this week, we had two difficult, physically demanding games, and then had the injuries going into a third game, which was disappointing all round.

“It wasn’t a case of we were beaten today, we lost.

“When you’re beaten, it means a team are far better than you. When you lose a game, it’s more to do with us than the opposition.”

Fullarton felt there were some encouraging moments from Town in the first-half, before his side got worse after the break.

“I’m no different from everyone else watching the game,” said Fullarton.

“I have more of an insight because I work with them every day.

“We’ve got to go again on Tuesday, ready to play against Leyton Orient next week.

“But my disappointment’s the same. While we all search for reasons, there’s some basic trends there, where we’ve had three very difficult games for different reasons, different types of opposition.

“And having picked up the injuries on Tuesday, and a limited possibility of rotation, it lacked a bit of energy and spark.

“I thought we had nice passages of play first-half, but not effective passages.

“The second-half was bitterly disappointing. The first-half, we showed signs of some nice passages, but the game just deteriorated.”