FC Halifax Town: Wild relishing Saturday’s top-of-the-table showdown with Bromley

The two sides go into the clash in mixed form, with both winning only two of their previous five games.

But whoever wins on Saturday will be top of the National League, while a draw could pave the way for Yeovil to overtake them.

The match is the first of two long trips south in a row for Town, who travel to Sutton United on Tuesday.

“I’m really looking forward to them,” said Wild. “Obviously it’s a top-of-the-table clash on Saturday, and hopefully we can keep our away form going.

“Hopefully teams will approach us differently on their own patch and we’ll be able to implement our plan.

“They’re all massive challenges now because of where we are and how well we’ve done.

“That’s probably been our frustration over recent weeks that we haven’t been able to get over the line.

“That said, I don’t think we’ve been absolutely miles off in any of the games, we’ve just unfortunately come out on the wrong side.

“It’s a huge challenge, but one we’re relishing, first and foremost against Bromley.”

Neil Smith’s side have only lost three games this season, and have scored in every match apart from the opening day of the campaign.

“I’m led to believe the atmosphere they create and the way they make things is going to be very difficult for us,” Wild said.

“They’ll try everything they can, every trick in the book, to upset us and make it as challenging as possible for us.

“It’s going to be a real mental battle on Saturday as well as physical and technical. They’ve got quality all over the pitch, they’ve got physicality all over the pitch and they play a brand of football that really suits the National League.

“I’m not surprised, based on their recruitment in the summer, that they’re doing well.

“The 3G will help them as well because they’re used to playing on it.”All things considered it makes for a really good contest.”

The Town boss isn’t too bothered about playing back-to-back games on artificial surfaces.

”Having worked for a team in non-league years ago that had a 3G pitch, it’s always an advantage, but it’s something I’m not really paying a lot of attention to,” he said. ”We’ve all played on 3G before, we’ll train on 3G this week and the good thing is we play on 3G twice in four days so we get them both out of the way at the same time.

“It doesn’t alter what we do at all. I’m not making a big deal of the surface. 

“We’ll play on tough, wet surfaces, we’ll play on carpets and we’ll play on 3G, it doesn’t really matter.

“I’m not going to use that as an excuse or mitigating circumstances for the game.”

Wild kept the players in the dressing room after the FA Cup defeat to Harrogate last Saturday for quite some time before coming out to speak to the media.
“We need to find a way to break teams down at home, and we’ll do that,” he said.
“I just see this as a bump in the road, I don’t see it as anything of real concern.

“I don’t think we should get carried away with what’s going on at the moment, we’ve got to just keep doing what we’re doing, stick to our plan and be better at our plan.”

Wild brushed off any suggestions there would be nerves from his side following their underwhelming last three results.

“We know what we’re doing, and if you know what you’re doing then there’s no pressure on us,” he said.

“They’re the home team, they’ve got to come out and try to beat us. And when teams come out to try and beat us, that’s generally when we do better.

“If we both go toe-to-toe with each other, what a game it’ll be, and what a great advert for National League football.

“I’m really looking forward to the game and trying to put things right.”

Wild said he tried a couple of different formations during Town’s 3-3 draw in a training game against Fleetwood on Tuesday, having switched to a 4-4-2 diamond last Saturday.

“I thought in periods it worked, and other periods it didn’t, like any formation,” he said of last Saturday’s defeat to Harrogate.

“We worked on it all week and there were things we could’ve done better in it.

“It’s a formation we’ve got the personnel to play. Will we use it again? I don’t know, we might use it on Saturday, I’ve not settled on how we’ll play yet.”

Follow all the action from Hayes Lane on Saturday afternoon on our live blog at www.halifaxcourier.co.uk.

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