Maidenhead United 1-0 FC Halifax Town: "It's not been a great 72 hours," says Wild after Maidenhead defeat

Town boss Pete Wild says his side lacked the quality they needed after their 1-0 defeat at Maidenhead saw them lose top spot in the National League.
Pete Wild. Photo: Marcus BranstonPete Wild. Photo: Marcus Branston
Pete Wild. Photo: Marcus Branston

Josh Kelly's first-half goal earned Maidenhead the win against a Halifax side badly hit by absentees.

"We've had a bout of illness in the camp, which meant two of our boys (Sam Johnson and Jordan Slew) haven't travelled," said Wild.

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"This morning, Luke Summerfield wakes up looking like a ghost, so that's another player who was starting, now sub who you can't use, and then Kian Spence was doing some exercises and his hamstring's not right, so if you play him and it goes it's my fault because he's told me (about it).

"So there's two subs you can't use, two players who were starting.

"Then Tyrell Warren has to come off at half-time ill, Kieran Green does his ankle.

"All in all, it's not been a great 72 hours.

"We've got a squad so you're not going to try and start getting games called off because what does that say to your players in the dressing room, who have tried to get in the team, so I wouldn't do that.

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"So the periphery has meant that when we get on the pitch, there's changes.

"I still thought we started the better team, I thought it was a matter of time before we were going to score.

"We didn't deal with the changes quickly enough when Greeny went off, it's a really poor goal to give away.

"We lose the ball in midfield, we then have two chances to deal with the goalscorer and we don't.

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"And then they do what Maidenhead always do, they sit in and say 'come and break us down and we'll hit you on the counter-attack'.

"It was a classic Maidenhead performance and fair play to them."

Wild added: "We had loads of the ball second-half, and had two or three good chances when we've got in their six-yard box but it's just not dropped for us.

"You have days like that in football. The lads gave us everything they've got, you can't say they didn't, but all that effort and endeavour didn't match the quality we needed today.

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"I don't think the players let us down today, we just lacked a bit of quality."

On the impact of Town being without so many first-team players, Wild said: "There's no excuses but you're making changes to the changes when Kieran and Ty go off, Harvey's come back early from injury so he's not fit to do 90, but I thought he did really well when he went on second-half.

"Then we tried to go 3-5-2 with 20 to go to try and change it.

"I'm comfortable that we tried everything we could to try and win the game, circumstances have meant we just haven't got over the line."

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Green left the stadium on crutches after the game due to his ankle injury.

"I don't know," said Wild when asked if he would be fit for Tuesday's game against Boreham Wood, "he's going to need a scan on Monday for sure and we'll see where that takes us."

On whether any of his other absentees might be back for Tuesday, Wild said: "We'll have to see. We need to add the numbers up and see where we are for Tuesday because we are struggling."

But Wild is optimistic about adding to his squad before the Boreham Wood match.

"We're hopeful of one," he said.

"One we were pursuing has decided to go elsewhere so we're hopeful of one and we're still working on a few more."