FC Halifax Town: Consistency the key for midfielder King

The 23-year-old sustained a knee problem in the 3-1 defeat to AFC Wimbledon in the FA Cup on December 1, and only made his return last Saturday against Solihull in a highly-impressive substitute appearance.

He then started the FA Trophy replay on Tuesday, in which Town were beaten 1-0.

“It was a horrible one because there were a lot of games over Christmas, and I was gutted to miss them,” King said of his injury.

“I want to play in every game, so I’m absolutely delighted to be back.

“The knee feels strong and I can’t wait to carry on now.

“I had my knee checked out and there didn’t seem to be any real issues, the main parts were intact, but it was still really bugging me.

“I couldn’t do a jog without a limp, so I had a scan, but it then settled down, so I’m good now, I feel fit.

“I just need some more minutes on the grass and some more training sessions behind me.

“When I first did it I thought it was going to be worse.

“Some injuries you get, you get kicks and they hurt for a couple of seconds and after that you’re alright, they can look like they hurt a lot more than they do.

“But I felt this one. You can never be too sure with knee injuries, you don’t know what’s going on in there.

“But thankfully it wasn’t as serious as thought, and I’m back out there now.”

King says he has loved his time at Halifax so far, having joined from King’s Lynn last summer.

“Obviously it was frustrating at the start of the season, I wasn’t getting many minutes,” he said.

“But then I came in the team and was doing well, then the injury kind of killed me.

“But I’m loving it up here, I just need to get more minutes and carry on where I left off.”

King feels Town fans have only seen the best of him in glimpses, and is aiming to reproduce his display last Saturday on a regular basis.

“I need to keep that level consistently, every game,” he said.

“The long trips away, sometimes you’re under the cosh, and sometimes I think I can get frustrated.

“I need to be more consistent, but that will come with fitness and more game-time, and that’s what I’m looking to do.”

Does King feel he has improved since the summer?

“Yeah. The gaffer’s helped me massively, especially in the number 10 position.

“He’s brought a lot to my game that I’ve never seen before from a manager, like a lot of movement off-the-ball.

“I had a bad habit of chasing the ball around, looking for the ball, and he’s taught me a lot of patience and a lot of the tactical side of the game to help me.

“Just getting on the ball in better positions and what to do with it when I’ve got it, and that’s maybe what you saw on Saturday.”

But the former Norwich youngster insists there is a lot more to come from him.

“Massively. There’s still around four months of the season left, so I’m hoping for a good run, keep my head down and get a string of good performances together.”

And King also reckons Town have more to come as a team in the remainder of the campaign too.

“Yeah, again, it’s the consistency level. Some games we’re starting off slow and some games we’re finishing slow.

“So just to keep that for 90 minutes - we showed in the last 35 minutes on Saturday what we can really do.

“Solihull are a good side, they’re not third in the league for no reason, and we dominated them and potentially could have scored more than two.

“If we can pick our consistency level up then we can get some wins under our belt.”

Does King believe Town are better than their league position suggests?

“Yeah, absolutely. I think in a lot of the games we’ve been hard done by, and maybe we haven’t taken our chances in certain games, which if we had, we’d be right up there.

“We did at the start of the season, and we were top of the league.

“So if we can keep that form and do the best we can then we’ll climb up the table for sure.”