Farsley Celtic boss Clayton Donaldson was pleased with a hard-fought point against promotion-chasing Spennymoor Town last night.
The Celts were again without a number of key players through injury and suspension – but produced a battling performance to stretch their unbeaten run in the league to four matches.
“I thought 0-0 was a fair reflection of the way the game went from start to finish,” Clayton said. “I thought maybe we had the better chances but we didn’t capitalise on them. We had a great chance when we went through one on one late in the second half and we might have won it, but in the end a draw was the right result.
“It had all the hallmarks of a scrappy game on a winter’s night. We had a few players missing, I think that showed, and they did too.
“The busy run of games have been catching up with a few teams and I think that showed. I kept looking around thinking we perhaps needed that bit of spark but we didn’t really have that, and they were the same.
“It was one of those Tuesday games where we just had to grind out a result and I think a draw was fair.”
Clayton said Dylan Youmbi’s performance merited his first goal for the club, with the Bradford City loanee unlucky with a late chance to snatch all three points.
“Dylan’s a good finisher in training and in games with his shooting. He usually puts those chances away and when he went through I thought this is the chance but it wasn’t meant to be. The keeper made a save. He’s young, he’ll learn from that and come back bigger and better.”
Clayton said a point was a positive result: “I’m really proud looking back. It was a draw and a clean sheet, so it’s a positive. It could have been three but they had a one on one so it could have been a loss as well. I said to the lads that a point is a positive result and we go into Saturday with a lot of confidence.”
The Celts recent run of league form is all the more impressive given we’ve played some high-calibre opponents in the past few weeks.
“When you look on paper you think we’ve got a difficult period here, with the likes of Buxton and Spennymoor, the fact we’ve got eight points out of four games shows we have come a long way, especially given we’ve been missing quite a few big players as well. The fact we’ve been able to stay in that and get those results has been a big positive.”
Clayton also praised the debut of midfielder Jack Evans, who joined the club this week.
“He had a good debut and it was good to get Jack over the line. He’s been on our radar for a while now and comes highly recommended. He was able to slot straight in because he had played games recently and I thought he had a good, solid debut.”
The boss is expecting a tough game when we entertain Hereford at The Citadel on Saturday. The visitors sit 13th in the table, just one point and one place above the Celts in what is sure to be a tight encounter.