FC Halifax Town: Gateshead preview

Town are still to concede a goal in this season’s FA Trophy, a run which now stretches to six hours.

Gateshead have lost only once in their last 12 games and have beaten Stocksbridge, Eastleigh and AFC Fylde so far in their run to the FA Trophy quarter-finals.

Aspin’s team have kept six clean sheets in their last nine matches, including a creditable goalless draw at Cheltenham in their last league game.

Gateshead are unbeaten in their last six home games, winning five, and have now gone nearly four hours since they last conceded a goal.

Striker Ryan Bowman is their top-scorer with 15 goals and has six in his last nine appearances.

Kevin Roberts is available after serving a one-game ban on Saturday, and could come back into the side in place of Jake Hibbs.

Town’s assistant manager Tommy Miller is excited about the replay and the chances of reaching the semi-finals.

“We’ll see how it goes, we’ll see what line-up they play and we might change it a little bit and tinker with ours,” he said.

“We’re looking forward to the game.

“We’ve been there and won, albeit it was with their previous manager and Neil Aspin wasn’t the man in charge.

“But we’ll go there with confidence and we’ll try and take the game to them, get a positive result and get into the next round.”

Gateshead boss Neil Aspin is wary of Town’s threat on the break.

He said: “You’ve got to be careful because Halifax like to play on the counter and if you commit too many bodies forward, they want teams to come onto them so they can counter-attack.

“I’m mindful of that but when you’re at home the onus is on you to get forward.

“But you can’t throw caution to the wind, you’ve got to be sensible in how you get the numbers forward.”