York City fear Simon Lappin faces lengthy spell on sidelines

Heslop moved inside from his right-wing back role after Lappin was helped off the pitch with an Achilles problem in the 55th minute of a 1-1 home draw with Maidstone.

The 34-year-old playmaker is now waiting to learn the extent of damage to his heel, but City boss Gary Mills believes the prognosis isn’t bright. “It’s an Achilles injury and, whilst I don’t know the full extent yet, I’m hearing it’s not too good,” the City chief lamented.

“Four players have dropped out of our small group now for different reasons over the last week or two and we’ve got to be very careful numbers don’t get too low, but I still don’t feel that’s the case yet. We can’t keep losing players but, if Hessie stays in midfield, Sean Newton and him wouldn’t be a bad two in there.

“They can both run and I thought Hessie was immense for us at right-wing back and in midfield. He covered a lot of ground in both positions.

“Lapps’ set-pieces will be missed, because they are a big thing for us, but you have to overcome these things and I’ll only look to bring somebody in if they jump out at me.”

The enforced, early second-half switch also saw Lanre Oyebanjo given his first run-out since October following hamstring, calf and knee problems.

On his return, Mills reasoned: “It was a big decision, but the only way Lanre’s going to get back into things is by giving him game time.

“He will be glad of the 40 minutes he played and it’s nice to have him back. If Lapps is out now, he will be pushing for a start.”

Mills also called on City supporters not to treat a draw with fellow relegation-contenders Maidstone as the “end of the world” with the club moving off the bottom of the National League table above North Ferriby and closing the gap to a place outside the drop zone to three points.

“Because of the position we are in, there was always going to be disappointment if we didn’t win, because we knew we would go above Maidstone, but it’s not the end of the world,” Mills declared. “There’s no point in saying what if.

“We have to move forward and we will be staying positive. We won’t be feeling sorry for ourselves, because we’ve come out of that mindset and I don’t want to go back there.

“I know emotions can take over you and our fans will be disappointed, but I don’t want them to be. We’ve only lost one game in ten, we’re off the bottom and we’ve made ground on a couple of teams with a game in hand.

“Now, we’ll just have to see where a win at Boreham Wood can take us.”

Mills did concede, however, that his team were punished for not capitalising on their dominance during the opening 45 minutes, with Jon Parkin’s early goal cancelled out by Reece Prestedge after the break.

“We were excellent in the first half and, having won our last game in the first 20 minutes, we should have done the same again,” the City manager argued. “The only thing missing was taking the chances we had.

“The game should have been finished with and that gave them an incentive at half-time, because they were only 1-0 down. That put pressure on ourselves in the second half and we didn’t really dictate the game as we have been doing.

“Maidstone also came at us a bit more and made things difficult, but we stayed disciplined and got our heads on a lot of late throws and corners to make sure, if we weren’t going to win, we didn’t lose.”

Mills went on to add that he was unhappy with the manner in which Prestedge’s equaliser was conceded, but was in no mood to apportion blame, saying: “Vadaine (Oliver) could have made it 2-0 about thirty seconds before the ball was in our net.

“Hamza (Bencherif) took a bit of a gamble to win the ball on the halfway line when he didn’t need to and that put himself out of the game. It was a good strike from their lad who had the freedom to do that, but you can analyse everything and I was happy overall with how we dealt with what Maidstone had.”

The Bootham Crescent chief confessed, though, that he was relieved to see Prestedge booked for simulation following a 79th-minute incident involving his keeper Kyle Letheren.

“It looked like a penalty, but the referee was a lot closer and I’m glad it went the other way,” Mills admitted.

Amari Morgan-Smith lined up alongside Parkin and Oliver in attack and Mills will now decide whether to persist with the three-pronged strikeforce at Boreham Wood next weekend.

“The gap between our midfield and forwards was a bit too much at times, which it is going to be sometimes when you play three up front,” he explained. “But we played that way in the first half and created numerous chances.

“Sometimes, with three up front, the ball can go forward a bit too early, rather than looking for another pass in midfield or out wide, but we’ve spoken about that and it’s a tight, little ground at Boreham Wood, so that might suit three forwards.”