After seeing his side's winning streak come to an end with a 2-2 home draw against Gainsborough Trinity, Liam Hogan believes his side have what it takes to get back on the winning path when his FC Halifax Town side host Bishop's Stortford on Saturday.
It's an unfamiliar side to FC Halifax, with Saturday being the first meeting between the two sides all season, somewhat of a rarity with January coming to an end soon.
Stortford come to the Shay with mixed form, having had some good results of late which has seen them rise up the table into 16th place, after a poor start to the season.
"They've had mixed fortunes a bit like us really, they were down at the bottom of the table at the turn of the year but the last few games when I was looking at the form table, they've done just as well as us. They've brought in a few younger players too so we're expecting them to be competitive and be up for it and they'll give us a good game. There's no easy games in this league and hopefully we can push on now, we've stayed unbeaten in 8 games so on Saturday we can go out and show what we can do again." said Hogan.
With FC Halifax's incredible winning streak finally coming to an end at the hands of a spirited Gainsborough side, morale is still high in the camp as the Shaymen came from behind to ensure their unbeaten run extended to eight games, even if the winning run did not.
"Yeah morale is high, I think you can see it out on the pitch, the lads don't want to give anything up now and when we came back to win against Worcester, it shows a lot of effort and credit to us. We had a tough game on Saturday where we ground out a tough win in difficult conditions and we've come here tonight in the space of a couple of days and in the first half we could have been a couple of goals up which would have given us a good advantage. The morale is the highest its been all season but the lads are tight-knit anyway and none of them have really been down when we weren't playing well." said Hogan.
Since the infamous departure of James Walshaw and Jamie Rainford in a hectic start to January, Neil Aspin's side are down to the bare bones and injuries to Aaron Hardy and Tom Baker haven't helped the FC Halifax cause. Hogan thinks his team-mates have enough quality to get through these tougher times though, and that his side will be fine come the end of the season.
"Obviously everyone who's in and around the team, the lads who start and the ones on the bench too can quite easily come in and do a job from the start if we need them too. We've got confidence in the players on the pitch and the staff in the background too. Yeah we're down to a small squad but the players we have are quality and we showed that today when we controlled the majority of the game but were unlucky not to win it." said Hogan.
"I don't see the next two games being any more difficult than the last home games and I think confidence will take us in and if we play like we did today then we should take as many points as are available in those games." continued Hogan.
Marley Anderson
