YORK City boss Colin Walker is backing his side to get back to winning ways after last night’s 2-0 defeat at Kidderminster Harriers.

The Minstermen have dropped to 12th in the Blue Square Premier following a run of just one victory in nine matches, but Walker was pleased with his side’s endeavour at Aggborough and feels they will play worse this season and win.

Following an evening when his side managed only two shots on target, however, Walker conceded that he remains unsatisfied with play in the final third of the pitch, where Daniel McBreen operated as a lone central striker until the second-half introduction of Onome Sodje.

The City chief said: “I think we’ll actually play worse than that and win games. We tried to play and I can’t really have a go at them because all the endeavour was there.

“I thought we played really well and some of our football was excellent. We’ve just got to be a bit better in the final third and we’re working on that, although I know I’m repeating myself.

“There are no complaints from me, though. Two-nil flattered them and I thought we had a team that worked its socks off.

“I have plenty of confidence in them and we’ve not got any problems if they give me that endeavour. The players did what I asked them to do and I thought we had a nice shape in midfield, with the players who came in doing well.”

With captain Mark Greaves suffering from food poisoning that has caused him to lose 9lbs in weight, Ben Wilkinson was recalled to the starting line up and on-loan Rotherham midfielder Peter Holmes was also given his debut as City spread five across the centre of the park, with Simon Rusk joining them in the middle and Simon Russell and Richard Brodie on the flanks.

Walker added: “We were disrupted by Mark Greaves going down with food poisoning and had to rejig what we were going to do. With him being out, we needed a bit more in midfield because he brings a lot of strength in there. Peter Holmes is a good player who is good on the ball in that little pocket. He started to cause a few problems and they picked him up, so we tried to change things.”

Walker admitted that he was disappointed with the first Kidderminster goal but that the second was a result of the visitors pressing for an equaliser.

He said: “Everybody was picking up their big players for the first goal and it was the left winger who beat them all to the cross. For the second, we had nine forwards in the last five minutes.”