YORK City boss Russ Wilcox is not anticipating a busy transfer deadline day at Bootham Crescent.

This season’s window for permanent signings will close at 11pm on Monday but Wilcox, whose third-bottom team are still waiting for their first win in 2015, does not feel his squad requires major surgery ahead of the final 18 fixtures of the campaign.

Wilcox has been encouraged by the Minstermen’s last two performances with this afternoon’s narrow 1-0 defeat at high-fliers Southend following on from last weekend’s 1-1 home draw with Burton.

In both matches, 88th-minute goals have cost City dear, with Southend sub Shaq Coulthirst wrapping up maximum points from the penalty spot this afternoon after Adam McGurk fluked an equaliser at exactly the same stage of the game against Burton and, on bolstering the team’s ranks during the next 48 hours, Wilcox said: “There might be one more out and one more in but I’m not desperate to do anything because the team have performed outstandingly well during the last two games against promotion-chasing teams.

“We just can’t get our results to marry up with performances at the moment, which is very, very frustrating. We absolutely dominated the first half.

“They’ve kept six clean sheets on the spin now but they didn’t deserve one against us. We were the best team by far.

“If you’d asked somebody who hadn’t seen the table, they would have thought we were the team near the top, rather than the bottom. I think it was probably the best three points Southend will collect all season because there would have still been a tinge of disappointment if we’d have come away with a 0—0 draw as we deserved to win and I’ve got to make sure that does not affect us psychologically.”

Wilcox went on to admit, however, that his side must find a ruthless streak, having just one Emile Sinclair goal to show for their efforts since the turn of the year.

He added: “I’m not coming in after games saying we looked a shambles or a mess and we should be sitting in mid-table now with six points from our last two games so we need a bit of lady luck. John McCombe had one cleared off the line (at Southend) but, other than a great save from Luke Summerfield, we also didn’t work their keeper hard enough.

“One goal in five games won’t win you many matches and we’ve got to improve that goals-for column to make sure we’re OK this season. We need a bit of composure.

“You have to put your chances away in any game but it’s even more important against the top teams and we had five or six against Southend. Things won’t get any easier though.

“We are going into the realm of six-pointers against teams around us now, but we won’t be changing our philosophy or becoming nervous. We must stay focussed and fully-committed as a group because, if we keep producing the performances we have done over the last two games, then the results will come.”

Wilcox will also be aiming to lift on-loan Middlesbrough teenager Brad Halliday’s morale in coming days after he tripped Pigott to give Coulthirst the chance to clinch victory from the spot.

“The penalty was disappointing because there was a lack of communication between Brad and Keith in dealing with the ball in the box,” Wilcox explained. “I couldn’t see the next incident, but the ref was in a good position and Brad will have to learn from that.

“It happens in your career and, as a young boy, you have to bounce back from mistakes, especially as a defender. There was nobody more down than him in the dressing room but we’ll just have to pick him up next week.”

The City boss is waiting to hear, meanwhile, whether Diego De Girolamo’s decision to reject a new deal at Sheffield United, where he will be out of contract in the summer, enhances the club’s hopes of bringing him back to Bootham Crescent for a third loan spell this season.

On that possibility, he reasoned: “It might strengthen our position. I hope so because he is capable of providing you with that winning moment and he is calm in front of goal for a young player.

“It will certainly be interesting to see how they use him from now on and whether he’s involved on Tuesday night in the FA Cup replay against Preston, as he was when he scored in the first game. He wasn’t involved today and we’ll have to see where we go from here. “They will have a couple of days to sell him or wait for a compensation fee in the summer. I’m surprised he’s turned down a contract there because they’re probably the biggest club in League One and bigger than a lot above that division, but that’s up to Diego.

“Only he can answer why. Maybe he felt his performance against Preston, when he scored, showed he was good enough to play in their first team.”