YORK City boss Russ Wilcox has told his players they must start taking advantage of their high corner counts.

The Minstermen forced 13 flag kicks compared to Exeter’s one during today’s 0-0 home draw at Bootham Crescent but managed just a single goal attempt from those situations – a tame downward header from Stephane Zubar that bounced wide.

During their last three defeats, City have also forced more corners than their opponents Northampton (8-4), Dagenham (13-1) and Stevenage (8-6), who went on to record 3-0, 2-0 and 2-0 triumphs respectively.

That means, along with the Exeter match, Wilcox’s team have a superior corner tally of 40-12 from those four fixtures but have failed to net in any and the City chief wants his team to start delivering dead balls into the heart of the penalty box.

He said: “We need a little bit more quality from corners to create opportunities to score. We did well in that respect during my early games at the club and scored from quite a few, but we’ve got to get back to that because we had 11 corners to Exeter’s one.

“We certainly do enough work on them and I would like to see the ball delivered between the sticks more, rather than too short or too long, because you create pressure if you do that. Then, you need a bit more desire to get on the end of it.”

The Minstermen have now failed to net in seven of their ten fixtures during 2015 and Wilcox also stressed that the team must start filling the opposition penalty area with more players.

He added: “Most of the space today was out wide and we exploited that quite well by putting a lot of balls in the box from crosses, corners and free kicks. We got down the sides a lot in the second half.

“Marvin (McCoy) put a fantastic cross in that just needed somebody to get on the end of it and we need to get more bodies in the box. When somebody goes down one flank, you don’t want just one man in there.

“You need your man on the opposite wing and a midfielder in there, so they are things we still need to work on and improve.” The City manager, meanwhile, felt his side’s desire was deserving of three points but admitted the hosts failed to create enough “golden” opportunities during a game in which they only managed three on-target efforts.

“It’s always two points lost when you don’t win at home, especially with the pressure we had,” he reasoned. “We didn’t have many clear-cut, golden opportunities but we had more of the ball in the final third than they had in ours and we should have won, especially based on our second-half performance when it was one-way traffic.

“I couldn’t fault the players for their attitude, application, work ethic and desire but we needed a bit more quality to create chances, which is difficult on our pitch. The positives are we came away with a point though and we have now taken four out of six at home and kept two clean sheets.”

Following a meek surrender during last weekend’s 3-0 defeat at Northampton, Wilcox went on to declare himself happy with the players’ fighting spirit.

“I was pleased with the physical side of our game,” he said. “If you don’t compete in games, you lose and we competed well against an Exeter team who can hurt you if they are given space and time on the ball but they didn’t give us many problems.

“They also played a diamond formation, which surprised us, as their manager often does, but we coped with that well too. There was one moment in the first half when Bobby made two good saves and Stephane cleared another shot off the line but the players put their bodies on the line and got their blocks in throughout the game.”

Teenage attacker Diego De Girolamo was handed his first start during the second game since his return on loan from Sheffield United but was hauled off midway through the second half after struggling to escape the attentions of Exeter’s midfield anchorman Danny Butterfield.

The dropped Emile Sinclair was brought on in his place and Wilcox explained: “I felt we needed a bit more pace up the top of the pitch.

“I wanted Diego to play off Wes (Fletcher) but, with Exeter playing a holding midfielder, there wasn’t much space to exploit. Diego’s also got to find pockets of space in different areas of the pitch when that happens and maybe switch with Michael Coulson and give the opposition a different set of problems.

“We decided to go 4-4-2 and get the ball forward a bit quicker, which we need to do a bit more when we are attacking our fans. The pitch is not conducive to attractive football and you’ve got to work with the elements rather than fight them.” Wilcox also revealed that work has started to try and address the churned-up playing surface at Bootham Crescent.

He said: “The players are waiting to see if there’s a bobble before they make that final pass. Passes are also going astray and crosses going behind the goal because of the pitch.

“Thanks to money from the board, there is work going on and people are trying hard to improve it. That will be difficult to do this season, but we are hoping it might be slightly better in the games coming up.”

City’s next two matches will be on the road, however, with Tuesday night’s trip to Cambridge followed by Saturday’s visit to AFC Wimbledon.

On that schedule, Wilcox said: “The next two games are really difficult, but there are always surprises in this division and we are more than capable of going to Cambridge and Wimbledon and winning both.”