YORK City boss Gary Mills remained positive about his team’s National League survival hopes following a 3-1 home defeat to Wrexham.

The Minstermen remain above the relegation places on goal difference, but now hover just one spot over the drop zone with two fixtures to play.

Away wins for Woking (3-2) and Solihull (3-1) at Chester and Macclesfield respectively saw both clubs climb above the Minstermen.

Fourth-bottom Braintree’s 3-1 defeat at Torquay, meanwhile, kept them on the same points as Mills’ team, but their 22nd-placed Devon hosts have closed the gap to safety to a single point. City now travel to eighth-bottom Woking on Saturday, knowing they will climb above their Surrey hosts with a win.

Anything less, though, will leave them at the mercy of Braintree and Torquay, who both take on play-off candidates this weekend.

Braintree are at home to Barrow, while Torquay travel to Dover.

After seeing Jon Parkin’s second-minute strike wiped out by a Dan Parslow own goal and second-half efforts from Jordan White and Leo Smith, Mills said: “Until the point when they scored, we had been OK, but then it was a different game.

“We never really looked like we would dominate the game again and it wasn’t a good performance. It was a poor result but it’s not about this game.

“A chance has gone begging, but there’s no point harking on about that. We have to move on and this group of players have been immense, incredible and fantastic for me since January 1. “We’re still out of the bottom four and need to go to Woking and get a result. We would have taken this position a few weeks ago – there’s no doubt about that – so we’ve got to take that as a positive.

“We’ve got two games to go and we’re fifth from bottom, so it’s in our hands.”

Following the Woking game, City will return to Bootham Crescent on Saturday, April 29 to face a Forest Green team who, with their play-off place already secured, lost their Easter Monday contest at already-relegated Southport 2-0.

The Minstermen have lost their last two home games, though, with Mills hinting that the nerves of the situation could be getting to his players at Bootham Crescent, where the season’s biggest gate of 4,091 turned up for the visit of Wrexham.

“Pressure isn’t easy and everybody feels it,” the City chief reasoned. “I watched Chelsea at the weekend and even they’re feeling it.

“It’s all about how you handle it, whether you’re at the top of a table or the bottom and we’ve not picked up any points in our last two home games when even one would have been nice in the situation we’re in. That’s happened in front of two big crowds and it’s disappointing that those fans won’t have a nice week now either.

“But we’ve got two massive games now for this football club and we won’t approach them any differently, because I know I have strong men and experience in my squad.”

Hamza Bencherif will return for the Woking match, having missed out against Wrexham due to the terms of the loan agreement that saw him move to City from North Wales in January.

On the impact of his absence, meanwhile, Mills added: “There’s no two ways about it – the three at the back have been superb together and Hamza being out disrupted things, so it will be nice to have him back.

“Shaun Rooney (his replacement) hasn’t played a lot of football of late and it’s not easy to come in, but he did OK.”

Mills, meanwhile, was barracked for long periods by the fans of his former club and, in response, declared: “I’m obviously not Mr Popular at Wrexham, but all I did was give it my best there and worked as hard as I could.

“It didn’t work out for me and, then, when you get the sack, you become the bad man – I don’t know why. If you don’t win the league, then that’s not good enough for people, but that doesn’t make me a bad manager.

“I’m on a list with quite a few others who could say the same thing, but I wish Wrexham all the best and, hopefully, they can find the right man to get them where they want to be."