FC Halifax Town 1-2 Harrogate: We were not good enough, says Town boss Wild after FA Cup exit

FC Halifax Town boss Pete Wild said his side were not good enough after Harrogate beat them 2-1 to knock them out of the FA Cup.
Pete WildPete Wild
Pete Wild

Two goals from Mark Beck won the game for Harrogate, either side of Niall Maher's equaliser just after half-time.

"Not good enough, second best," said Wild on his team's performance. "Especially first-half, we didn't win a tackle, didn't win a header, we were pushed off the ball, we were dominated in possession.

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"We were terrible first-half, and I don't use that word lightly.

"There were some choice words at half-time, started the second-half better and I thought the goal would give us a lot of impetus.

"Then we get hit with a soft goal, we should stop the cross, stop the run. We could have done so much more to stop that goal.

"We were too far off them. Obviously it takes time to get used to a change in shape, but it wasn't good enough, for 90 minutes, against a team that dominated the ball with and without it.

"They were better than us."

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Town had their best spell of the game straight after the interval, following an awful first-half display.

"It shouldn't take me at half-time to gee them up to get them going," Wild said.

"Yeah we did look good but then we get hit with a sucker-punch of a goal that kills us and rocks our momentum.

"Up until that we'd probably shaded the second-half in terms of dominating the play, but they always looked in control and like they'd see the game out."

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Wild said he would need to watch the game back before he can properly judge the success of the diamond formation he deployed.

"I didn't see it coming, we had a good week on the training ground," he said.

"We tried to change things to try and address teams sitting in against us.

"We've addressed a few things and hopefully the discussion we've just had in there will allow us to move forward."

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The result makes it three games on the spin at home without victory, and adds to disappointing performances against Chorley and Boreham Wood.

"We're always going to go through a sticky spell. Every team in every league will go through a sticky spell," Wild said.

"I'm hoping this is ours and that'll be us and we'll get back to where we need to be.

"I'm hoping we come out of it very quickly.

"Coming out of that dressing room now, I feel a lot more confident about moving forward.

"We all know what we need to do."

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On the absence of playmaker Cameron King, Wild said: "He's not been feeling good all week. He hasn't been fit to train through an illness.

"Hopefully we'll have him back next week and we can build up a full squad ahead of a really exciting encounter next week at Bromley."