FC Halifax Town are without a win in eight after a disappointing 3-2 defeat in the reverse fixture against the Quakers on Boxing Day.
Speaking ahead of the game, Town boss Billy Heath wants to address the defensive frailties the side has seen of late.
“Once again it was an awful first goal for us to concede so early on. We didn’t deal with Darlington properly down our right-hand side and their top goal scorer (Beck) is gifted a tap in” said Heath.
“We have a problem now and that’s teams aren’t doing a lot to score past us. We seem to switch off or make a mistake but we’ll keep pushing and will look to put this right-on Sunday.”
Halifax remain in 9th, six points adrift of Tamworth in 5th but Town still have two games in hand on all the teams occupying the play-off positions.
Despite no wins in the last eight games the club remain in the hunt for promotion back to the National League. Victory against Darlington is vital to climb back into those positions.
One man who will be looking to help in that quest is new signing Adam Morgan – who is already off the mark in a Shaymen after netting twice on his debut.
Despite no training with the squad and only joining 48 hours prior to the Darlington clash, Heath was amazed by Morgan’s performance.
“The boys a talent and that’s the reason we’ve brought him here. He’s got the ability to start off the front but he can also come short and link things up in the pockets that defenders hate.”
The boss will also hope to have key players back in contention for selection, after putting ‘square pegs in round holes’ in the previous fixture to accommodate Danny Clarke, Liam King (both suffered virus) and Jake Hibbs (failed fitness test) missing out.
“Back-to-back fixtures is obviously something unusual in the fixture list” said Heath when addressing the New Year game. “We’ve seen what they can do but we should be focusing on our own performances” said the boss.
“We can’t hide away from this, we’re on a bad run and as a collective we need to stand up, be brave and try and get this important result.”
“We’ve got to do our jobs better. Everybody’s frustrated with the current form but when you look at the table we are still in a good position given the games in hand. We need to keep believing and I have no doubts that it will turn around soon.”
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