WOUNDED York City have started the long haul back from their Burnley battering with a touch of TLC - tender, loving care.

Manager Alan Little ventured it was not the time to read riot acts or set about wailing and railing.

With the morale of the Minstermen painfully punctured by Saturday's 7-2 Turf Moor mauling, the days building up to Saturday's visit of Walsall to Bootham Crescent would concentrate on re-building confidence, said the City boss.

City's self-assurance has been struck by not just the Burnley fall, but the home collapse to Millwall, defeats which have undermined hopes of making the play-offs.

But Little insisted his squad had not been suddenly transformed into poor players by the last two results in which ten goals were conceded.

"I don't believe we have become a bad side overnight. I know how well the team can play and the players must also believe that themselves.

"But it might be a case of going back to the past, to when the side were doing well, and doing those things again.

"If we scrap and battle and fight for every ball that's what we have got to do to get us back on the rails."

The postponement of tonight's Pontin's League trip to Wrexham at the Welsh club's request meant City have a full week of training in which to iron out the flaws that have appeared so disastrously.

"The most important thing this week is to try to instil confidence. The group is very quiet, the group is very down. That's a natural reaction. But it's not a knocking process this week, it can't be. I need to pick the players up."

As he surveyed the last two games Little recalled how well City had started in both matches, taking the lead before slipping to defeat.

What City had failed to do was exploit their superiority.

Said Little: "That killer second goal never came. That's an important aspect of it.

"It's all about turning the screw when we are on top. For 35 minutes at Burnley we were electric, then we went off. It's the manner in which we lost that is the hardest to swallow. We've not made that many mistakes all season."

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