FC Halifax Town will travel to Greater Manchester to take on Altrincham in the Vanarama National League North with Billy Heath’s men looking to push on into the play-off positions and after 10 points in just four games, confidence is high.
Despite Altrincham struggling in the league and currently sitting rock bottom on just 9 points, the side did manage to claim a draw at the MBi Shay Stadium near the start of the campaign, and defender Scott Garner believes his side should want nothing less than to claim three points.
“We dropped points against Altrincham at home which was really sloppy, so we are owed three points from them so we’ll be going there to claim that.”
Halifax and Altrincham were both relegated from the National League last season, which meant they were both one of the favourites to kick on and push for promotion this time around. The Robins did start off promisingly but have since slipped and find themselves fighting to stay up again.
Garner is one of just many who are surprised to see such a fall from grace but believes it gives him and his teammates the chance to really take it to the opposition.
“When we drew 2-2 with them we thought that they would be up there anyway but they have done nothing since then. It’s been a bit of a shock. Now that they are down there they must be low on confidence so we’ve got to take it to them and show them what a good team we are.”
The Shaymen should have been going into the game coming off the back of a match against Alfreton in mid-week but heavy rain meant that the fixture had to be postponed for the second time this season. Always eager to get out onto the pitch, the centre-back expressed his disappointment with the delay but insists the squad will be ready for the weekend.
“If anything, we were a bit disappointed, we’ll be chomping at the bit even more to have another game because of it. There won’t be any negative effect from Tuesday, we’ll just want to go get another three points and put in another good performance. It could work out in our favour overall because we could go to Alfreton later in the season when we are needing three points to get into the play offs.”
Three points against Matt Doughty’s side will make it an impressive 13 points in just five games, which would cap of an incredible start to 2017 for The Shaymen.
The feat is more impressive when considering how the side ended 2016 with a miserable run, being knocked out of each cup competition and slumping as low as 9th in the league. Now just one point away from the fiercely contested play off positions, Garner puts the remarkable turnaround down to a togetherness inside the club.
“We had that bad run of eight games but I think the turnaround if anything it just showed the true strength of the squad and the staff and the management in that everyone stuck together through that bad stage and now we’re blossoming and we can kick on from there. The last four games were fantastic and even against Stockport I thought we more than deserved to win that.”
You can watch FC Halifax Town take on Altrincham on Saturday the 4th of February at the J Davidson Stadium.
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