FC Halifax Town: “Get back to what we do best”, says Town boss Wild

Town were dumped out of the FA Trophy last Saturday by Halesowen after a dismal performance.

And Wild is under no illusions that his side must produce a far better showing if they are to get a result against Sutton, who have lost only once in their last 14 games.

“First and foremost we need to play a lot better than we did on Saturday,” said the Town boss, “we need to be braver with the football and we need to get back to what we do best, which is dominating play and using our attacking prowess to win football matches.

“Having watched Sutton in passing when I’ve been watching other teams, they’re a team that are very hard-working, will certainly come after us and make it really difficult for us because of how hard they work off the ball.”

When asked if he was confident he would get a reaction from his players on Saturday, Wild said: “I’d like to think so. I had a long discussion with the players this week regarding my thoughts from the weekend, and where I thought we fell short.

“We know what we need to do now, we know we have 13 games to get over the line and we know what’s going to be required within those 13 games.

“If there is a positive to take from Saturday now we go Saturday-to-Saturday, and we’ve only got one midweek game.

“That allows us to try and focus week-to-week on the opposition and hopefully the big prize at the end of it.”

On his side bouncing back against Sutton, Wild added: “You can never tell - actions speak louder than words. I’ve said my piece, and they trained well, but I’ll only know if we get a reaction come five o’clock on Saturday.

“It’s not me pointing the finger at the players, we all have to take responsibility every week.

“I’m not one for going ‘it’s me versus them’, it’s not, we’re all in it together, we’re all disappointed about Saturday, we’re all looking to put things right and do things better, as staff, as players.

“It’s not me saying they were rubbish, it’s us as a collective, and we’ll be looking to make sure we all do our bit so that it shows on the pitch come Saturday.”

On Saturday’s opponents Sutton, Wild said: “They’re a good side. In passing, in watching other teams against them, one thing that stands out a mile is how hard they work, and how much pressure they put the opposition under to stop you from playing the game you want to play.

“We’re going to have to fight fire with fire first and foremost, we’re going to have to match their intensity and then hope on the day we’ve got that little bit of quality at the end of it to finish them off.”

Town’s next five games are all against sides 12th or lower in the National League table, but Wild isn’t reading too much into that.

“This league throws up different challenges every week and if you’re half-a-yard off it, you get beat,” he said. “It doesn’t matter where they are in the league.

“For me, I don’t see any game as easy, but we’ve got a big end to the month now and we need to pick up points and make sure we continue to fight at the right end of the table.

“If we don’t, we’ll soon slip away, and I don’t want that because the lads have worked too hard to get themselves back in contention.”

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