FC Halifax Town U19s were defeated 4-0 at home to AFC Fylde this afternoon. We caught up with Steve Nichol after the game
Unlucky today, do you feel the score was a fair reflection of the match?
“I think Fylde were a stronger more physical team and they’ve had a good year, two years playing together so their squad was mainly made up of under 18’s, under 19’s and we’ve put out a squad predominantly first years. We have changed our approach this year we are going to have a team in the under 19 academy league which is a strong league and a team in the u23 league too. We knew we were taking a risk in the approach we are taking so it may be difficult for the players at this moment in time. But 18 months down the line, two years down the line, the players will have a good grounding, potentially and hopefully give them the best platform in which they can keep developing. So, what is tough, yes, did Fylde deserve to win, yes, they did, it is a good experience for our players. I think it’s just important that they stay together and stick together and we keep working hard to develop them over the coming few months.”
Despite the result do you feel there is a few positives to take away from the match?
“Yeah, definitely. We are really pleased with some of the recruitment we’ve done this year, we think we’ve got some very good technical players and some players with good backgrounds in local football and academy football as well. There’s a learning process that they need to go through in terms of the level of the game and intensity and physicality of the game at this level so if we can marry those two aspects together in terms of what technically and tactically we give them the platform in which they develop physically in there as well then hopefully we are getting a recipe for good environment to really enhance their development going forwards.”
And lastly, following today how do you feel the rest of the season is going to go?
“It’s hard to think about that on the back of a result like that. If I was to be fair, there’s a lot we need to work on, there’s no doubt about that. I think box to box today we showed some good flashes of players and some good spells of football but we need to get back on the training pitch and sort of focus on how we defend, how we work out possession at times and revert back to the framework a little bit more at times, in terms of the player understanding of that but you know it’s been a tough summer. You know like most clubs we’ve had to work through COVID so our training times have been reduced. We’ve also had the process of change of staffing, quite a few of our youth teams, a few key staff have changed around due to the circumstances as well, so there’s settling down this moment in time as well. So, we are very hopeful for the season ahead, but we appreciate it’s going to take a lot of hard work to get us up our full potential.”
Next Game: Darlington vs FC Halifax Town U19s – Wednesday 23rd September
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