York City boss Martin Foyle refuses to get carried away as top of the table gap gets narrower

10:29am Monday 8th February 2010

By Dave Flett

YORK City manager Martin Foyle has played down his side’s Blue Square Premier championship chances despite closing the gap on top two Oxford and Stevenage to a point.

Michael Rankine scored the only goal of the game to earn the Minstermen maximum points at Kettering on Saturday, while Stevenage went down to a 1-0 defeat at Tamworth and Oxford were held 0-0 at home by Kidderminster.

But, despite making ground on the leaders, Foyle was reluctant to talk about a three-horse title race, stressing that his team still have several tough away games left to play, including trips to Mansfield and Kidderminster before closing their 46-fixture campaign at Stevenage on April 24.

Oxford also still have two games in hand and, when questioned about the current promotion picture, a grounded Foyle said: “There will be no pressure on the players from me. They know what they have got to do and we are quietly getting on with our jobs.

“There might be a big thing made of the other teams dropping points at the weekend but we still have a batch of away games to come. Seven points from our last nine on the road is a fantastic return but we need to play a bit better still.”

Foyle did, however, praise his side’s ability to grind out results after Rankine secured victory with the visitors’ only on-target effort of the match and believes that knack could prove important on difficult pitches during the next two months.

He added: “There won’t be many pretty games in February or March but we are grinding out results with two banks of four because that’s hard to break down if the players know what their jobs are. If it wasn’t for a fantastic save by Michael Ingham, we would have been a goal down in the first ten minutes when we were giving silly free-kicks away again but Kettering didn’t really hurt us after that.

“We put Jimmy (Sangare) on in midfield with 20 minutes to go because I felt confident we would go on to win the game.”

Sangare replaced goal hero Rankine after the former Scunthorpe striker received two lectures from referee Richard Wigglesworth in as many second-half minutes having been cautioned before the break for an aerial challenge on home defender John Dempster.

About his 25-year-old forward’s eventful afternoon, Foyle said: “I’m pleased he got on the scoresheet because his last league goal was in November and, before this game, I had a chat with him and said I needed to see him shooting and finishing more but he’s still young and working on his game.

“In the second half, I thought the referee was lining somebody up to be sent off. It could have been Ranks and I don’t know whether it should have been, so we had to take him off straight away.”

Midfielder Neil Barrett, meanwhile, only got on the pitch in stoppage time after failing to make the starting line-up for a second game since recovering from a thigh injury.

Foyle admitted that, with a fully-fit squad, his team selections are becoming harder, saying: “I felt sorry for Neil Barrett as he played in all of our nine wins on the trot recently but you have to make these big decisions.

“I’m fortunate to have 20 fit players and Josh Mimms, Richard Pacquette and Kevin Gall didn’t even get on the bench but they will all play their part between now and the end of the season.”