FC Halifax Town: Let's stick to the plan, says Wild ahead of Wealdstone clash

The Shaymen go into the game having suffered back-to-back defeats for only the second time this season, losing 3-1 at Wrexham and then 2-0 at strugglers King's Lynn.

Performances in those two losses, and in some of Town's five consecutive wins before that, have been below par.

But Wild says now is not the time to abandon the approach that has propelled Halifax into the race for promotion this season.

"What I want them to do is keep being us, I don't want them to come away from our plan, the plan's got us where we need to be," said the Town boss.

"This is a great week for us to do some technical and tactical stuff on the training ground, which we've not been able to do for probably four or five weeks, and get back to stuff that's based around us.

"So what I want the players to do is listen this week, take on board the information, implement the information and go and give it everything they've got on Saturday at home against Wealdstone."

When asked what his message will be to his players ahead of Saturday's game, Wild said: "It's that last Saturday wasn't good enough, it wasn't us.

"It's the first time in 34 games I've felt frustrated in terms of lack of effort, so we need to go and deliver at home and whoever's selected needs to make sure that we come away with the three points on Saturday."

Town's have three home games in eight days starting on Saturday, with promotion rivals Solihull the visitors on Tuesday before Halifax face Woking next weekend.

Wild believes it is a good thing for his side.

"Hopefully, yeah. We've go the best home record in the whole league," he said.

"It's funny because in the summer we recruited to be better at The Shay, and then I looked at that stat on Saturday, who has the best home record, and I had a wry smile on my face.

"So yeah, home's going to be where the heart is in terms of six at home, four away, and we need to make sure that home continues to be where we deliver."

Wild feels his side were ready for this week's game-free week after a busy schedule of five matches in 18 days.

"We needed it. Let's have it right, in the last two games we looked a bit tired and jaded," he said.

Reflecting on Town's last two outings, Wild said: "We're obviously very comprehensive in our review process.

"We were beaten by the better side at Wrexham, and on Saturday, first-half we had a lot of the ball, had them penned in for long periods, but the second-half's nothing to do with tactical formations etc, they just wanted it more than us.

"That's probably the most upsetting thing as a manager. There isn't a magic solution as a coach, we tried to change it, we went 3-4-3, we tried to change personnel round, we tried to do everything we could on the sidelines to try and improve the result, but unfortunately it didn't work for us.

"The thing for me was it looked like they wanted it more than us."

Wild added: "It's the time of year where silly results happen, it's been a long few weeks in terms of games, and we just need to recheck, adjust and go again.

"It's not 'oh my god', it's definitely not 'oh my god', we've had it well this year.

"What we have to do is sit and reflect and go 'we're fourth in the league, third's in our own hands, we're still having a great season, and we've been on the road, where it's always tough to pick up points'.

"What we have to do is make sure we win our home games and there's three coming up."

Wealdstone are 17th in the National League and come into the game in mixed form, having won two, drawn two and lost two of their last six matches.

"A really good footballing team," said Wild, "I've watched them a lot recently, a good footballing side, really play a good way and it should be a really good football match on Saturday, as it was at their place."

Wild says Wealdstone have shown they are capable of taking points off the teams near the top, having drawn with Bromley, Wrexham and Notts County and beaten Grimsby this season.

"Definitely, they've certainly got a result in them, got a decent team spirit in them," Wild said.

"You look at their results against the top teams, it took Wrexham 97 minutes to score their winner, and they should have beaten Bromley on Saturday."