YORK City boss Gary Mills admitted his team were “second best” during a 2-0 derby defeat to National League North leaders Harrogate Town.

A goal in each half from Joe Leesley and Liam Agnew condemned the Minstermen to defeat in front of a 2,800 sell-out crowd at Wetherby Road.

City hit the post through skipper Sean Newton in response, but Bootham Crescent chief Mills gave an honest appraisal of his team’s shortcomings at the final whistle, saying: “Even though they didn’t create chance after chance, we were second best from start to finish in terms of winning the ball and they were livelier than us.

“I thought there was a foul by their player before we gave the penalty away for the first goal, but we ended up with Theo Wharton one-v-one at the back as last man and I don’t see how that happens after their keeper had made a good save from Alex Whittle. We then didn’t stay with the runners for their second goal and that was suicidal.”

Frustrated away fans joined in with “You’re Getting Sacked in the Morning” taunts directed at Mills as the game ended and some hurled a batch of paper missiles towards the City chief. On that reaction, Mills added: “Maybe they were betting slips that we had ruined - I don’t know. But, if people want to throw things, they will.

“My job is to manage the team and the stewards’ job is to do something about that. Myself and the players have jobs to do and, at this moment in time, I want to do my job a bit better.”

The Minstermen were missing top-scorer Jon Parkin for the game due to the aggravation that is caused to his knee by playing on 3G surfaces.

Explaining that decision, Mills reasoned: “His knee has taken a lot of wear and tear over the years. It’s why in pre-season we also had to be careful with him on the hard surfaces.

“It would have been detrimental going forward to have played him for the sake of one game. It wasn’t worth the gamble.”

Michael Rankine was unavailable too, as the club await the results of tests for a high blood pressure problem, meaning Kaine Felix started at centre forward before being replaced during the interval as Mills switched to 3-5-2.

“I felt a bit for Kaine,” the City boss later admitted. “We were not really getting the ball down and I wanted him to get down the sides for us, so we could use his pace, but there were too many high balls sent up to him and he was having to fight for them.

“We changed it at half-time, but it didn’t really work, even though we had two or three chances.”

Defeat saw seventh-placed City fall 11 points adrift of their hosts, but Mills is in no mood to give up on automatic promotion after a dozen games played.

“I’m disappointed that we’re now 11 points behind, but there’s a long, long way to go and football is a funny game,” he argued. “We have to make sure we stick in there and keep working hard and then hope we can win enough games and teams at the top drop a few points.

“We’re in a situation I don’t really want to be in, but that’s where we find ourselves and we have got to do something about it.”

Josh Law, meanwhile, was replaced at half-time due to a groin problem with Mills uncertain whether the injury will rule him out of Saturday’s FA Cup third qualifying round trip to South Shields.

“He was feeling his groin a bit and we’ll have to see whether it settles down or not,” the City chief pointed out.