"THERE was a lot to like" about York City's 2-0 win at Southport believes manager Steve Watson.

Watson was particularly happy with the control and composure York had over the game in patient build-up play, which yielded a variety of chances.

He has implored his players to show much the same for next Saturday's National League North clash with AFC Telford United at Bootham Crescent.

Jordan Burrow slotted home a sweet second after the restart, and was credited with the first goal - but Watson says he is unable to cast any light on who it belongs to.

"You have to be pleased don't you?" he said. "There was a lot to like about today's performance.

"We got the clean sheet, which we always try to start with. When you're playing a team that loads a lot of balls into the box, your job as a defender is to guard the goal and defend the box, and we got bodies on the line and people in the right positions.

"Apart from that, everything was about us.

"We played with a lot of patience at times, from side to side and back across and because of that, we carved them open numerous times, probably more so than a good few weeks.

"Energy levels looked excellent, the midfield rotated really well and Jordan's retention was excellent. Both wing-backs did everything we asked of them, they attacked well and defended well.

"I don't want to put any kind of negative vibes out but when you're playing away from home, you get a certain amount of time on the ball, you can be patient, and wait to pick teams off. Sometimes you do have to go back to go forward, and if you move teams enough, they open up. We played at tempo when we needed to and we slowed the game down when we could and something I said to them is to please have that mentality for the next game.

"One of my only gripes is that we got a lot of balls into the box but we didn't get to many first headers, but that's a small gripe in a very good away performance."

Burrow's second was neatly set up by Kieran Green, who drew the defence out with a surging run forward - something now looking very familiar to York fans - before laying off for the striker to plant inside the far post with a left-footed finish.

"It was a clean break, a good weighted pass and a great finish with his wrong foot," Watson said.

"Macaulay had his chance when he came on, Kempster had two or three chances, we had shots from distance - we created all different kinds of opportunities against a side who have come off the back of a bad result when they've been pretty solid all season."

Asked if he could clarify who got the first, he laughed: "I left them to it. There's three of them claiming it - Greeny, Griff and Jordan."