Town seeking best run of home league wins in twelve years as in-form Barnet visit The Shay

Chris Millington insists his side need to be at their best if FC Halifax Town are to topple the National League’s form side for a seventh straight home win at The Shay on Saturday.

Town’s dominant 3-1 midweek victory over Dorking Wanderers matched last season’s effort of six Shay wins on the bounce in the league.

But not even since the pre-Jamie Vardy days have the Shaymen managed to secure such a splendid succession of at least seven league victories on home soil.

You have to trail back through the archives to the 2009-10 UniBond Division One North season for such exceptional sequences. And Neil Aspin’s men were greedy that campaign as a run of eight home league wins at the start of the season was followed by a thrilling run of ten Shay victories which helped them pip Lancaster City to the title.

However, fifth-placed Barnet visit The Shay in tremendous form having won their own previous four league outings without conceding a single goal.

Millington, while praising his side’s current run of home results, therefore knows his side needs to be “absolutely outstanding” to reach win number seven.

He said: “We spoke about this prior to the York game. We spoke about making sure teams came here and didn’t get an easy ride and if they do go away with anything then they’d have to really earn it.

“That is the case now. No one has been here in recent weeks and gone away with anything, certainly let alone being able to go away with anything we’ve given them.

“We have learned how to defend as a team, regardless of where the ball is on the pitch, and we have got a real cohesive defensive unit and it is every man on the pitch who takes responsibility for that.

“We are very hard to break down and then when we regain possession we are particularly good at securing it and building it up the pitch with good, secure possession.

“That is something we will have to be absolutely excellent at on Saturday to beat Barnet. They are a very good side who are full of energy, full of endeavour and have got 95 minutes of hard graft in them.

“So we are going to have to match all of that and try to be the better team when we have got the ball.

“The recent turnaround in form, in particular the improved home form, is going to have to continue on Saturday and to continue it we will have to be absolutely outstanding out of possession.

“Barnet are quick, athletic, they have got a good physical presence and they will look to put us under pressure with the ball at the earliest opportunity.

“We have got to match them in terms of our competitiveness and our ability to go and win those first contacts. If we do that I have every confidence that we can get the ball down and make the most of the big pitch here at The Shay.

“We should be able to win that battle, it’s about matching them in the first instance which is going to be the most important thing.”

Asked if Town can convert their super home form to picking more points up on the road, Millington said:

“We are confident that the away form will follow. At Yeovil we were by far the better team, we just couldn’t stick the ball into the back of the net and were undone by a particularly strange penalty decision.

“We have played almost everybody now, there is only Altrincham we are yet to face, so we know that there is nobody who holds any significant fears for us and we go into the second half of the season in a confident mood.”

On the injury front, Millington confirmed Angelo Capello was substituted on Tuesday due to suffering a dead leg but believed everyone to be in “good health” ahead of Barnet’s visit.