AN angry Chris Brass is demanding his York City miss-hits seek swift redemption after the Minstermen were soundly beaten by Bury.

Brass deemed last night's 2-0 defeat and performance at Gigg Lane as unacceptable and admitted City were second-best to the Shakers throughout.

He is now looking for an immediate response from his players on Saturday, when Cambridge United are the visitors to Bootham Crescent.

"I wouldn't like to have sat through that for 90 minutes and so, like we did after the defeat at Yeovil, we have to make sure we bounce back and give the right performance on Saturday," he said.

"We have to redeem ourselves and fortunately we have a chance to put things right quickly."

Brass added: "It was a very disappointing display and it is not what we expect. For whatever reason, we seemed to be second best all over the park and it was a bad day at the office.

"We need to regroup now, take it on the chin and we certainly owe ourselves a performance on Saturday."

Brass said he was particularly frustrated by the lack of fighting spirit on display against Bury.

"We seemed to accept it and you should never accept defeat," he railed. "We know during the course of the season we are going to lose games.

"But we cannot just accept it. Even with three or four minutes to go and at 2-0 down you can still win it or get something out of the game.

"That disappointed me and it is something I am going to have to do something about."

Brass revealed a groin injury had deprived him of the services of striker Aron Wilford, prompting a tactical switch with Christian Fox recalled to the starting line-up for the first time since the opening day of the season.

With on-loan striker Dean Crowe still short of match fitness, Fox was deployed just behind the front two of Lee Bullock and Liam George.

Brass admitted City struggled to make the switch count.

"Christian needs to get on the ball. Unfortunately, we didn't get the ball to him enough and we didn't really utilise him," said the City boss.

Brass could be a doubt for Saturday's visit of Cambridge after suffering an elbow injury in a first-half collision which later forced his substitution.

Jon Parkin has trained all week and could come into contention for a place on the bench on Saturday.

However, skipper Darren Edmondson may not be yet ready for a first-team recall.

Edmondson has been out all month with a calf strain and although it has showed signs of easing Brass indicated he did not want to rush his captain back too soon.

Updated: 11:17 Wednesday, October 01, 2003