FC Halifax Town: “We know we need to be doing better” says defender Clarke

The Shaymen’s 1-0 win at Maidstone on Tuesday night - their first in 10 games - extended the gap to the bottom four to five points and lifted them up to 15th place in the National League.

But Halifax’s recent performances against strugglers Chesterfield and Aldershot, and their run of nearly nine hours without a goal, have caused plenty of frustration among supporters.

“We know we need to be doing better. It’s not about hiding away and ducking our heads into the sand,” said Clarke of the recent criticism levelled at the team.

“It’s about embracing that as players. We know we’ve not been good enough.

“The manager puts out a team and gives us the instructions, and we’ve probably not been delivering on that.

“But sometimes it’s confidence and lads not playing as well as they know they can.

“It’s about us experienced players, the captain, Kossy (Matty Kosylo), Ben (Tomlinson), keeping everybody on their toes.”

When asked if the main emotion after Tuesday’s win was one of relief, Clarke said: “100 per cent yeah. Us as players are just thankful we’ve got that (win), certainly Quigs (Scott Quigley) scoring hopefully releases a bit of pressure from him.

“I thought the team defended really well, we limited them to not too many chances, and we created some good chances - me and Jordan (Preston) hit the cross bar.

“When Kossy slipped Quigs in, that was a fantastic break.

“It’s a win that is much-needed, but we can’t dwell on that now, we’ve got to take the positives and look forward to Saturday, which is another huge game for us.”

Clarke now hopes The Shaymen can push on and get some more points on the board, starting against relegation-threatened Havant and Waterlooville at The Shay on Saturday.

“We can’t take out foot off the gas, we’ve got to keep pushing on as hard as we can and work harder and run faster.

“We’ve got to keep the pressure on ourselves and keep looking for those wins. That’s all that matters at the moment.

“Clean sheets are fantastic but we’d love to be winning 3-2 or 2-1. We just need to get those goals flowing.”