YORK City attacker Emile Sinclair is hoping to win back the support of the club’s fans following the dismal 3-0 defeat against Northampton.

Sinclair knows the Sixfields performance will have tested the loyalty of the Minstermen faithful and is determined that the side put on a better display at home to Exeter tomorrow to regain their much-needed backing.

City claimed only their second home victory of the season in their last outing at Bootham Crescent - an impressive 2-0 triumph over Tranmere - with Sinclair fully aware of the need to sustain those standards in North Yorkshire during the final two-and-a-half months of the season.

He said: “We get good followings home and away and we’ve got to try to get the fans onside because we need that. That’s down to us, first of all, by attacking, creating chances and working hard.

“Those are the basics and, if we do that, they have proven they will stand by us. We’ve got 14 games left and, if we can’t get three points from each one, we’ve got to try to get one.

“We have to make things difficult for teams at home and be solid in away matches and pick up points where we can. You can’t give away cheap goals like we did at Northampton and we must make teams break us down, while we play on the counter-attack and manage games better.

“The result and performance (on Saturday) were disappointing and we gave away three poor goals.

After our displays against Luton and Tranmere, we had come out of the bottom two and given ourselves a chance to start climbing the table but we’ve got to take what we learned from Saturday’s match into the next one.

“All good teams will go through a down period but then come back fighting and our next match is a big game, so we will be working hard before it. We need consistency more than anything.

“Northampton was a poor game but we’ve got to put it on the back burner and move forward.”

The defeat was made all the more painful for Sinclair, who was deemed surplus to requirements at Sixfields last month having only started one league game for the Cobblers in 2014/15.

He argued that the team’s agony was greater than his own, though, adding: “For personal reasons, I wanted to go back and get three points against my old team.

York Press:

RED LETTER DAY: Emile Sinclair celebrates scoring the opening goal against Burton

“As a striker, I also wanted to score but you have to look past all that in the situation we are in because we need to play well and get three points from every game and I was disappointed with the result more than anything else.”

Sinclair also shrugged off the boos he received at the hands of Saturday’s home fans, reasoning: “That’s all part and parcel of playing football.

“I am a confident person and, when you get stuff like that, it doesn’t faze me. You’ve just got to laugh and have a bit of banter with the crowd.”

Northampton have won six of their last eight games to rise from the division’s lower reaches to a position eight points outside the play-off places but, while Sinclair reckons his old team are capable of closing that gap further, he does not feel the potential of last Saturday’s hosts provides an excuse for the Minstermen’s display.

“They have a good squad at Northampton,” he admitted. “They were saying that when I was there but they were under-achieving until recently for whatever reason.

“They are a good bunch of players and, if they don’t get promoted this season, they will have a good go at it next season. They get good backing from the chairman but we’ve got a good squad as well and can beat anybody on our day.

“We didn’t turn up at Northampton but, whoever we play, we can give them a good game, if not beat them.”

Sinclair has confessed, meanwhile, that he is just as comfortable in the right-wing role he has been handed since City switched to a 4-2-3-1 formation three fixtures ago, having been used as an orthodox centre-forward during his first three matches for the club.

“I’ve played wide right through my career,” he explained. “Obviously, I’m a striker who likes to score goals but I like to play out wide as well because I can drop deep, get the ball and run at players, which is my game.

“Sometimes, as a striker, you have your back to goal a lot and don’t really get much space to run into, so I like playing where I am in the formation. Obviously, it’s a lot of hard work tracking back but I’m happy to do that.

“I just want to play every game, whether that’s as a striker, on the right wing, left wing, at left-back or centre-half. I will play wherever I’m needed to do a job for the team, as long as I’m getting on the ball and trying to create something.”