Emley battled out a goalless stalemate at Garforth Town on Saturday to hold on to second spot in the Northern Premier League Division One (East). Manager Richard Tracey was pleased with his team’s first half showing but felt they let their opponents back into the game in the second half.

“For 30 minutes in the first half I thought we were very good. It’s always a tough pitch at Garforth because it undulates and it’s dry. I thought we were good, we were on the front foot and we were probing, but our quality let us down a little bit.

“There were two or three balls we could have got away better, that would have put us in better situations but we didn’t execute. That was something we thought we could step up in the second half. But the second half was probably one of our worst 45 minutes collectively, we really struggled to get a hold of the ball, to get territory, and at times we had to defend resolutely to stay in it.

“Having done that, we got a great chance with the short back pass that we didn’t take, and they had a one-on-one which they didn’t take. You’ll take a point when you know you’re not at your best away from home, but we were slightly disappointed because I thought we had done really well in the first half.”

Tracey was thankful to have no midweek fixture as the squad recovers from a few injury issues.

"We didn’t train Tuesday, we had five or six spells (on Saturday) where the physio had to go on and treat people, and there were people picking up knocks. We’ve got lads recovering; Belchior Rodrigues, Alex Metcalfe, and Chris Dawson. We made the decision to buy them a bit of time and we trained again Thursday as we prepare for Sheffield on Saturday.”

Tracey’s side face another tough test on Saturday afternoon when they host Sheffield FC at the Fantastic Media Welfare Ground on Non League Day.

The visitors currently sit at the bottom of the table, but have turned their form around over the past month and have made good ground in trying to claw their way to safety. They now sit eight points from safety, but have picked up ten points in their last five matches, losing just once.

“I’m expecting a tough game. They looked dead and buried a few weeks ago, but they are getting themselves into a position where they are competing to get out of it.

“The reality is they are getting wins back-to-back at the moment, so we know it is going to be tough and we are going to have to play well to get anything out of it.

“What I am looking for from us is a bit of a reaction. We can be hungrier and be a bit more positive to try and get a win. Certainly from the last few games I want to see us, on the front foot more and really trying to open teams up and create opportunities for ourselves.”