York City flirted with relegation from Sky Bet League Two during a frustrating 2014/15 season. Here DAVE FLETT looks back at all the highs and lows for the Minstermen

RUSSELL PENN’S thunderbolt might have staved off the threat of relegation back to the Conference with three games left to play.

But, if York City are to avoid storm clouds gathering over Bootham Crescent next term, key problems, that have been prevalent since the club’s 2012 return to the Football League, must be addressed.

Current Minstermen chief Russ Wilcox, like Gary Mills and Nigel Worthington before him, will kick off the 2015/16 campaign hoping to convert more draws into wins.

He will also be looking to discover a reliable marksman and, hopefully, resurrect reserve football at the club.

During the three campaigns since reclaiming their League status, City have drawn well over a third of their league fixtures - an abnormal 55 of their 138 contests.

This season, just as in 2012/13, the Minstermen have ended honours even in 19 matches - more than any other side in the division on both occasions.

In between, meanwhile, Worthington’s play-off semi-finalists, drew 17 fixtures - the third-highest tally that campaign behind a Wilcox-led Scunthorpe, who shared the spoils 21 times and, it should be pointed out, were promoted.

Nevertheless, of great assistance in that quest to turn more single points into three would be the acquisition of a prolific frontman.

Most managers will testify that such players are the hardest to find and, more often than not, demand the highest wages but they are out there.

The likes of Andy Bishop, Clayton Donaldson and Richard Brodie are all examples of strikers plucked from relative obscurity by City in the past who went on to become potent talents in North Yorkshire before moving up the divisions and commanding bigger salaries.

Jake Hyde’s league haul of nine goals this season, though, follows similarly modest campaigns that have seen Wes Fletcher and Ashley Chambers both top the charts with ten.

The Minstermen will certainly need more aggression and penetration in the central striking roles and, indeed down the flanks, than has been the case over the last nine months when a record of 16 home league goals represented the worst-ever tally - by some stretch - during 93 years of football in the city.

Wilcox’s stated intention to reintroduce organised reserve games, meanwhile, must be followed through. During the season’s struggles, there were several examples of how the absence of second-string fixtures impacted significantly on the senior side.

Following long lay-offs that saw them miss pre-season, Josh Carson and Wes Fletcher were both pressed and hurried back into action without the assurance of reserve run-outs and never looked capable of hitting the same heights of the previous campaign.

Dave Winfield, meanwhile, only looked match fit after he had spent a month on loan at AFC Wimbledon and farming out your players to rival Sky Bet League Two clubs to give them match practice is not good practice for any professional outfit.

Had the likes of promising first-year pro Ben Godfrey been given the platform to display his talents against senior opposition for the stiffs, he could have also emerged as a credible contender in a midfield area that only seemed to function fluently when Luke Summerfield lined up alongside Penn in a 3-5-2 formation for the last nine games.

Wilcox deserves credit for employing that system and its importance in safeguarding the club’s Football League status should not be under-estimated with four wins and two draws amounting to the longest unbeaten run of the season following its implementation.

Whether the switch could have been made earlier, given it had been under consideration a long while before and always looked the best use of the assembled squad, will remain a hypothetical question.

What is beyond doubt, though, is Wilcox’s superior win ratio to his predecessor Worthington, who had only tasted victory once in his last 17 fixtures before tendering his resignation.

In contrast, the ex-Scunthorpe boss has claimed ten triumphs during his 36-game tenure - an especially encouraging statistic given he only made one permanent signing - Emile Sinclair - in that time.

Wilcox also, importantly, found a way to come out on top in almost all of the most important contests. Eight of his ten successes came against teams that would finish below seventh-bottom City in the league standings.

Worthington’s one win of the campaign, meanwhile, was the only three points picked up against any of the clubs that ended up in the top ten places, highlighting his successor’s assertion that the squad, while rarely anything less than fully committed, lacked the quality to compete with the division’s leading lights.

Recruitment, as Wilcox has already acknowledged, will hold the key to raising standards in that respect.

Worthington started five of his summer signings when the season kicked off with a 1-1 draw at Tranmere but by the end of the campaign three had been transfer-listed (Jason Mooney, Marvin McCoy and Lindon Meikle), one still awaits discussions about his future (Femi Ilesanmi) and the other (Anthony Straker) has spent the last three months on loan at Motherwell.

City must now trust that Wilcox, whose loan signings have generally been encouraging, can enjoy better fortune in the transfer market during coming weeks to help deliver a season fitting for what is intended to be the last at Bootham Crescent.