Back to basics for misfiring Shaymen

Chris Millington says FC Halifax Town will go back to basics in order to try and improve performances, writes Tom Scargill.

The Shaymen have been badly out-of-sorts in their last two games, with a much-improved second-half display rescuing a point at Fylde last Tuesday before a drab outing in defeat at Wealdstone on Saturday.

And the Halifax boss says there has been a refocusing on what needs to change.

"Sunday was probably the worst Sunday I've had in a long time," he said, "it was one of those times when your brain doesn't give you any peace because you're trying to work through where we're at, what we need to improve and what the priorities are, how we can achieve those as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

He added: "What that's given me and us as a management team is absolute clarity on what we need to address to move us forward in an efficient way.

"What you find in management quickly is the best learnings happen in defeat and adversity.

"It's easy when you're winning game after game and things are ticking along nicely but then when you have a couple of poor performances and a defeat where you don't meet the standards you've set yourself, it creates a bit of space and an opportunity to really focus on where we're at and what we need to improve on.

"So we go into Aldershot with a great amount of clarity about how we're going to play, what the team's going to look like and what we want to achieve in our play."

When asked what will be prioritised in search of improvements, Millington said: "If you look at the season as a whole we've been fantastic in winning defensive duels and I apologise to the fans who are reading this because it comes across as a bit of coach-speak, but we've not won as many defensive duels, we've not been as well organised, opposition teams are getting more touches in our box than we've had all season and clearly that results in us conceding more goals.

"The very basic things we need to address all the stats back-up where the problems are and what we need to do better.”

More Town news – page 47