GARY Mills has told York City chairman Jason McGill he might have to look for a new manager if he wants the team to play 4-4-2.

The Minstermen lost 2-1 at home to lowly Barnet at Bootham Crescent on Saturday, leaving Mills’ side without a win in eight matches since beating Burton 3-0 on New Year’s Day. But the City boss insisted the side’s struggles are not related to his favoured 4-3-3 formation.

He said: “Four-three-three has been very successful for us. The problem we have got is that we are giving goals away at this moment in time but, if the chairman wants a 4-4-2 manager, then I’m proud of what I have done at this club.

“People might be having a go at me and I’m having a hard time and finding things difficult, but we’ve got to stick together. We’ve got to play the system better – I know that and the players do.

“But why should we stop doing something that has worked well?

“It’s easy to say we should be playing four up front but we’d have lost some games by four, five or six goals if we had lined up like that this season. It’s not a system problem. People have not been doing their jobs well enough in the formation we are playing.

“That’s as individuals and as a team. Losing games also affects confidence, but you have got to stay confident.”

The City manager was livid, meanwhile, with the manner in which his side gifted Barnet substitute Jake Hyde the winning goal on Saturday. After Bees winger Andy Yiadom had cancelled out David Stephens’ seventh-minute own goal, a mix-up at a throw-in between Jamal Fyfield and John McGrath saw Hyde secure maximum points on 73 minutes.

An annoyed Mills said: “From our throw, in front of my dugout, the ball has ended up in our net within seconds. You can’t be giving goals away like that at this level and get away with it, but we’ve been doing that for a few weeks now.

“We’re not scoring an abundance and I know that’s a problem as well but, when we are conceding goals like we have been doing, it makes things difficult. Throw-ins are a big part of the game.

“You throw the ball to your man, get it back and see the next pass but my left-back has thrown it in and, within seconds, it’s in the back of our net. We had the ball in our hands and they weren’t particularly squeezing us so that’s not good enough and we’ve got to be so much better than that.

“You can’t be that sloppy and it was an abysmal goal. I couldn’t see them scoring, but we gave them a gift.

“If we had got a 1-1 draw, we would have remained eight points clear of Barnet but that’s changed because of our inability to see a game out and that’s a massive blow. We’re down in the bottom eight and have got to go to Oxford and Rotherham and pick up points now.”

An honest Mills also admitted that both himself and the players need to perform better to change the team’s fortunes.

He added: “We are losing games and that means I’m not doing my job well enough and the players aren’t doing theirs well enough either. We’ve got to do our jobs better.

“There were some positives, but not enough. I thought the loan players like Jack O’Connell, John McGrath and Curtis Obeng did well, but some of the players that have been here a couple of years have to do better. Their quality was not good enough.”