Billy Heath says FC Halifax Town need to ‘roll their sleeves up’ and ‘be brave’ in the wake of their 2-0 defeat to Maidstone United at the MBi Shay Stadium on Tuesday evening. Heath’s side were undone by a Joe Piggott goal which the manager described as ‘cheap’, followed by a Jai Reason penalty which stand-in ‘keeper Tom Nicholson had no real chance of saving.
“Just disappointed, frustrated, a little bit lacking in confidence at the minute,” was Heath’s overall assessment when speaking to Adam Cheshire for Shaymen TV. “We know how important the first goals are at this level and it’s a cheap one to give away, there’s a ricochet and the boy’s clean through, so obviously we’re disappointed with the first goal.
“It’s massively important, I think it’s proven time and time again, at this level, that the first goal dictates games.
“We’re just lacking in a little bit of confidence at the minute, a bit of cohesion. We’ve got to turn things around, and look to Tranmere.
“I thought we started OK to be fair, I thought it was pretty even, but then we gave a cheap goal away. After that we huffed and puffed a little bit but we’ve just lost that fluency about us at the minute.”
Goalkeeper Nicholson was a late call-up for Town as regular number one Sam Johnson suffered a non-footballing injury earlier in the day. Heath lamented his side’s current run of luck but was complimentary about his back-up ‘keeper’s performance.
“It just adds to a long list, we’ve been very unfortunate at the minute with players missing, suspended and injuries. We’ve just been very unfortunate, and then we lose Sammy literally this morning, to an innocuous injury, nothing to do with football, getting something out of the refrigerator and his back went into spasm. That can only be our luck at the minute.
“I think Tommy acquitted himself well enough, definitely well enough. I think now we’ve just got to roll our sleeves up, we’ve got to work even harder than we have all season. We’ve had a decent start to the season, probably better than anybody could have imagined, and now we’ve got to really roll our sleeves up and start getting some points on the board.”
Catch the full interview, plus interviews with Nicholson and Scott Garner, and match highlights by subscribing now to Shaymen TV.
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