YORK City manager Steve Watson admitted Tuesday night's 4-1 defeat to Hereford left him "gutted" and gives him a lot of thinking to do.

Lenell John-Lewis scored a brace for the visitors either side of half-time, with Kelsey Mooney and Jevan Anderson also hitting the back of the net.

Alex Kempster struck the hosts' only reply on a night when Watson praised the amount they created - and lamented the luck that followed most of them.

York struck the woodwork and were unable to reach the rebound, while Kieran Green thought his header had gone over the line before being collected, and there was a goal disallowed for offside.

But this was tempered with Watson's main gripe of York's defensive performance.

"This is going to sound crazy but that's the most we've created and the best attacking performance we've put on in a while," he said.

"I'll probably get criticised for it you're asking me to give an assessment after a game like that. Maybe tomorrow would be a better time.

"A lot of times this season, we've found it difficult at times to break teams down. Today was the opposite. We created a hatful of chances and we were desperately unlucky with the amount of times we hit the bar.

"Greeny's chance looked like his was clawed back from over the line, but we'll never know.

"Fair play to them, they came and played. It was open at times. The goals we conceded were our own doing.

"We were in a situation where we wanted to win the game and have as many forward-thinking players on.

"What are usually four reliable defenders were defensively awful tonight.

"The first goal, it hit the post and lands at the striker's feet. The second goal, we don't need to give that foul away and somebody's lost their marker for a set play. Third goal, somebody's lost their man for the second phase of that. They both held their hands up but that's not going to help us.

"Don't get me wrong, I don't expect anything but criticism for a 4-1 home defeat and I dare say I'm every bit as gutted as any single person that came to the ground tonight. I won't be sleeping tonight and I'll have a lot of thinking to do.

"The other side of it is, we created so much and tested the keeper, everything that could have gone wrong at both ends went wrong tonight.

"It doesn't matter what system you play if you defend like that," he added.

"We started the second half brilliantly and Greeny had a great header. If that's an inch closer to the other side of the post, it doesn't give the keeper a chance.

"Those are the fine margins tonight and we're standing here talking about a 4-1 defeat.

"If we defend the way we have for 90 per cent of the season and things drop differently in the box, we could be talking about the score the other way around but we're not."