South Shields 2-0 FC Halifax Town: "We were weak and too soft" - Wild pulls no punches after Shaymen are dumped out of FA Cup

The hosts more than made up for their lower-league status with a tremendous display, against a Halifax side who were woeful from start-to-finish.

"Let me apologise to all our fans about today - that's the worst performance I've had in 18 months here at this football club," said Wild.

"One thing I want from my players is to work as hard as they can and they didn't do that today.

"That's why we got beat, because we didn't work hard enough.

"We were weak and soft to play against.

"I can only apologise, that's not good enough and that won't get us where we want to be. I've told them that.

"You can't be half-a-ard off it and expect anything. We didn't look a threat all 90 minutes, we paid them too much respect, we were nervous on the pitch and that isn't us.

"Everything we are, we weren't today, and that's why we got beat.

"I have no excuses, I take it all on the chin, I take full responsibility. That is not good enough."

Wild added: "We were up for it in the dressing room before we walked out, we were up for it in the warm-up, but we just didn't impose ourselves on them.

"We spoke all week about imposing ourselves on them and we didn't, we let them impose themselves on us.

"They scored two goals but, let's be honest, it could've been three or four."

Wild said South Shields fully deserved their win, and their place in the first round.

"Fair play to them, they were excellent throughout the 90 minutes," he said.

"I watched them on Tuesday night and I knew what was coming.

"I prepped the lads and told them how it would be.

"It's a wake-up call for us, we've had a really good start to the season and we've looked strong, tough to play against.

"Everything we've looked in the last five games, we weren't today. That's why we got beat."

Wild said both South Shields goals were "avoidable" and "soft".

"They've had four, five, six good chances," he said.

"They were going to score at some point if we kept letting them have chance after chance after chance.

"Too many players were nowhere near the mark today. Off it.

"You can maybe carry one or two but not six or seven who are off their game."

Looking ahead to next Saturday's game against Wealdstone at The Shay, Wild said: "I've said to them the gloves are off now, I can pick who I want next Saturday.

"Fans are probably looking at it thinking 'why has he not brought Luke Summerfield on?' but he's had a sore groin all week and hasn't trained, so I thought it was too much of a risk on the pitch to risk his groins.

"I've got to think long-term for the rest of the season, not just for a snap 15, 20 minutes."

And on striker Jake Hyde, Wild said: "It's too soon for him to start at the moment, he's still recovering.

"He'll get another weeks' training under his belt and hopefully we'll be back where we need to be for next Saturday, because that now becomes a game we must win and get back on track.

"We don't want to be sluggish in our approach so we need to get back to winning ways on Saturday."