Chris Millington hailed his Town side’s best result of the season so far after their 3-1 win over Eastleigh at The Shay.
Goals from Billy Waters, Will Smith and Adam Alimi-Adetoro made it four unbeaten for The Shaymen as they swept Eastleigh aside with a vibrant display.
“Best result for sure,” Millington said when asked if he felt it had been Halifax’s best performance of the campaign so far.
“From the Oldham game, where I thought we played well, there were three things we wanted to make sure we were tighter on; being more diligent sticking to our jobs off throw-ins, free kicks and corners into our box, we wanted to be more intense in the starting periods of both halves and we knew we’d had some really dangerous attacks that hadn’t come to anything against Oldham, which we highlighted to the lads and they were in agreement that we didn’t exploit those opportunities, which was the third thing wewanted to put right.
“For the vast majority of the game, we’ve done those three things much better, and that is the important bit because we knew as a staff and a group that we were doing a lot of things very well.
“But you don’t get the credit off the fans, people around the stadium or other people around the club unless you’re getting a result, a lot of people don’t notice the things that you do between the two boxes, they just go away remembering what happened in both boxes.
“Those things weren’t quite going for us but today they have, but there’s been a lot more to the game today that we’re pleased with.”
Town scored three goals in a game for the first time this season and showed some ruthlessness in-front of goal.
“Yeah,that was hugely important and if we’d have made more of those against Oldham, where we had lots of dangerous attacks without them being clear-cut chances, and without us making the most of the good chances we did create,” said Millington.
“If we’d done that against Oldham (taken chances), we’d have run out winners, but we didn’t and most people think we got what we deserved out of it.
“Today we’ve had the finishing touch, we’ve been more clinical and I think we got what we deserved.”
Waters scored his first goal in 18 months to get Town up and running.
“He’s done an awful lot for us since he’s come in and it might not be recognised, the work he does off the ball, but he goes to war with centre-halves who are twice his height and twice his weight,” Millington said.
“He holds up his fair share of balls that go into him, he competes for headers he should never have any right to win, he chases and presses opposition defenders so they can’t play forward with a lot of quality.
“Not only does that help the team but it also sets the tone for other players to match and follow and the lads respond to that.
“It’s great for him to get his reward because if he doesn’t put the ball in the back of the net he probably doesn’t get the credit he deserves, so we’re really pleased for him.”
Town’s other two goals also came from set-pieces.
“The lads are very coachable, very open, good technical footballers, good at moving it and changing the point of attack in tight areas,” Millington said.
“When you’ve got a restart from a specific position on the pitch, we can set them up within a framework but they’ve got the brains and the technical ability to be able to hurt teams and that’s what they’ve done really well today.
“But you’ve got to have players technically gifted enough to be able to expolit those opportunities and we have, we’ve got a really good technical group.
“The finishing touches were done by the goalscorers but those who laid them on deserve some credit.
“We’ve had other opportunities – Angelo Cappello’s early in the first-half was a good, well worked routine, two really good chances for Adan George he’s been unlucky not to profit from.
“But I’m pleased with the contribution of the whole squad today.”
The Shaymen outplayed an Eastleigh side who had made a strong start to the season up until this week, over-running their opponents with some attractive, flowing football.
“That’s intententional, we’ve got to be bright in the early stages of halves,” Millington said.
“We’ve conceded three goals this season in the early part of halves and we’re better than that.
“There’s a lot of youthful exuberance about the group and a lot of energy, and we’ve got to maximise and channel that to profit from it.
“So it is a concerted effort. We’re grateful to have such a coachable, hungry group of players.
“They’re brulliant, they’ll question and they’ll challenge and they’ll ask for explainations but they’ll implement what we’re asking them to do and they’ll do it very well.”
On the first-half substitution of Angelo Cappello following a clash of heads, Millington said: “We just felt it was sensible to withdraw him at that stage.”
