AFC Fylde manager targets a winning return

The Coasters make the long trip to Berkshire still licking their wounds from last weekend’s exit from the FA Cup, where they were beaten 3-1 at home to Chesterfield.

The defeat allows them to turn their focus back to their National League campaign, with Challinor’s men currently sitting in sixth place in the table.

The Fylde boss said: “I’m not a big one of taking positives when we’ve just lost.

“Maybe in the long-term things might work out but we wanted to win. I want to win every game we play, whether that be Chesterfield in the FA Cup or a reserve game against Burnley. We haven’t done that so I’m disappointed with how it’s panned out.

“But we’ve worked hard this week and we now look forward to a tough trip down to Maidenhead.”

Fylde fielded a side featuring much taller players in the fixture at Chesterfield in the league earlier in the season to combat the Spireites’ long balls.

But Challinor changed that last weekend, bringing in more technical players in a bid to try and dominate the game.

However, that approach backfired with the Coasters being comfortably beaten.

“We went down there and played with some bigger players to be more solid to come away with a clean sheet,” Challinor said.

“We change it for this one by fielding some smaller, more technical players and we come out on the wrong side of the result.

“We knew we probably needed to tighten up but we’ve not set up any differently, apart from when we went to Chesterfield because you have to deal with the fact they’ve got seven or eight players over six foot tall. In our team we’ve got three or four.

“So it’s always going to be a tough ask and sometimes you’ve got to pick up horses for courses to help you pick up wins.”

Fylde are hopeful of having defender Danny Williams back fit for today’s game after the Accrington Stanley loanee missed out last weekend with an ankle injury.

Challinor added: “Danny Williams got injured last Friday unfortunately, otherwise he would have played last Saturday and we would have left Zaine (Francis-Angol) out, who is managing a long-standing problem.

“He took a knock in training and he’s had a scan which shows he’s got a slight tear on the ligament on the inside of his ankle.

“Hopefully that will only be a week or so and then he’ll be another one we can add to the squad.”