MARTIN GRAY insists his focus is on bringing stability to York City's starting line-up – but has also intimated that fringe players will continue to leave.

Recently, the manager has emphasised the need for the club to balance the books, to lighten the load on the chairman and replace squad members with sure-fire starters.

However, Gray now seems more content with his current playing staff, praising their work in training this week and their goalscoring abilities.

As a result, he stresses that he now wants to work on building a settled squad. And that includes not bringing in players who would be surplus to requirements on a weekly basis.

He said: “We’ve had a really good week on the training ground and we’re just trying to get some stability now, and settle things down.

“We’re in the market, no question about that, but the players – if we are bringing anybody in – they’ve got to be starters.

“We’re not bringing in any squad-fillers at all. They’ve got to be here to improve the starting 11."

David Ferguson was among the collateral damage of this philosophy last week, only making the bench in the victory at Alfreton.

He had travelled to Slovakia with the England ‘C’ squad, but this was not the reason for his exclusion from the starting line-up.

Gray said: “(Alex) Whittle’s done very, very well, so the competition for place is great and they’re both fighting for that spot at left-back. That brings out the best in people.

“Ferguson’s got to up his game. There’s competition for places. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been at the club for two weeks or two years, I’ll pick what I think is the strongest 11 to win the game. Why would you change that winning team?”