GARY Mills has admitted the challenge of keeping York City in the National League this season is now as big as the one he faced to get the club promoted out of the division back in 2012.

The Minstermen were humbled 4-1 at home to Lincoln with Yan Klukowski’s 68th-minute goal a consolation as Elliott Whitehouse, Nathan Arnold, Luke Waterfall and Bradley Wood struck for the visitors.

Daniel Nti was also sent off in stoppage time for a reckless challenge on Alan Power.

It was a result that saw the Minstermen drop to third bottom in the table and a forthright Mills, who is seven win-less games into his second spell as manager, said: “I got this unbelievable club out of this league four years ago and I think the challenge to keep the club in it will be up there with that, because that’s where we are and you have to be honest and face that, which I am.

“The chairman brought me back here to sort out a mess, if you like, but we’ve not got a good enough squad of players to compete with the likes of the teams we’ve been playing recently. The goals we conceded against Lincoln were so soft.

“I couldn’t believe the first one from the corner and the second was a calamity of things that shouldn’t be happening and can’t happen. You could try to analyse what happened in this game and it would take me hours and that would only create more problems and we have to look forward.

“Our supporters had to sit or stand through it and were singing ‘We’re Going Down’ and you can see why they’d be singing that, so there’s no point in me telling them what they already know. I’ve got to get the right squad of players together to get us a result at Bromley, because I want to be the man to get this club going again and it’s all about finishing above the bottom four in April.”

Mills will continue to look for fresh faces ahead of that game, adding: “I thought I had a striker for this game and maybe we need two as well as two centre-halves probably, but it’s difficult to get the right ones in.”

On Nti’s dismissal, meanwhile, he fumed: “It was just naivety and a ridiculous challenge that means I will be missing another player for three games. It basically comes down to whether you’re good enough to play at the level we’re at or not.”