FC Halifax Town: “We’d like to add to the squad for Saturday” says Wild after Chadwick departs

The departure of Billy Chadwick back to parent club Hull City leaves Town with Accrington loanee Lewis Mansell and Jamie Allen as the only fit strikers for Saturday’s game.

Chadwick had scored three goals in five games for Town, and was due to play against Southport before Hull recalled him.

“You can’t recall anybody within the first 28 days, yesterday was 28 days, so they’re within their rights to recall him,” said Wild.

“We were hoping we’d get Saturday out of him but they’ve had players go back to their parent clubs, and injuries, so he comes into contention for them for Saturday.

“On the one hand we’re excited he’s going to get his opportunity and we’ve helped him in his development at our football club.

“But on the other hand it leaves us short in some respects because Jamie Allen is still returning to action and we haven’t got anybody else in at the moment.

“We are trying, we’ve got a couple of things spinning but we’ve been working on the premise that after the 16th we’d need to strengthen, and all our conversations with clubs and players have been around that 16th date.

“It’s been tough to say the least, but one thing it does say is that people who come on loan to us are doing well, and they’re getting recalled by their parent clubs.

“So we’re obviously doing something right, but because we’re doing something right that’s probably to our detriment at the moment.”

Wild says Mansell is available to play on Saturday, but that Allen, who is recovering from a knee injury, needs to be treated with caution.

“Lewis is fine to play and we’ll have to manage Jamie’s minutes and decide how we do that,” said Wild.

“If we can we’d like to recruit to add to the squad for Saturday, but it’s just speeding the process up and maybe deals that were going to go though next week, so we’ll have to see.”

When asked what the chances were of bringing a striker in before Saturday, Wild said: “50-50 at the moment. We’re spending a lot of time on the phone, I’m waiting to hear back from a club as we speak about a centre-forward but these deals take time.

“We are where we are in the food chain, clubs are trying to recruit from their side to allow people to go out the other side.

“We are looking to recruit and we are looking to recruit somebody who would be with us for the rest of the season but we’ve got to get it right our side as well.”

Wild is hopeful the game will go ahead on Saturday, but that the weather has disrupted his side’s preparations.

“We’ve had training cancelled again this morning, the 3G was snowed under, the grass was snowed under, it was like an ice rink trying to get into the training ground this morning so we’ve had to send the boys home to work from home and do a gym programme from home again, which is not ideal,” he said.

“We’re going to train indoors tomorrow to negate any chance of the weather doing us over, so we’re hopeful for Saturday but driving back over the M62 it was grim to say the least.

“We’re hoping for the next 48 hours that the weather will chill out.”