YORK City must not give up on their play-off aspirations following a 2-1 home defeat to Tamworth, insisted manager Gary Mills.

Goals by former City midfielder Ben Wilkinson and Kyle Perry sealed the hosts’ fate in Saturday’s Blue Square Bet Premier encounter despite a late consolation from substitute Leon Constantine.

The defeat was Mills’ first home league reverse since leaving Tamworth to take over the managerial reins at Bootham Crescent in mid-October, ending an unbeaten 13-match sequence featuring ten wins.

A victory for fifth-placed Fleetwood, who boast a goal difference 20 superior to City, saw the Lancashire outfit move six points clear of Mills’ men.

City still boast a game in hand though – tomorrow night’s home match with third-placed Luton – and with Fleetwood yet to play Kidderminster, currently sixth and two points better off than Mills’ men, the City chief is in no mood to write off his team’s top-five chances yet, despite admitting Saturday’s game saw his team produce their worst performance during his six months at the club.

“It was the poorest we have been since I came here for whatever reason and I’m gutted that happened on Saturday,” Mills lamented.

“We wanted to keep on the coat tails of Fleetwood but the game’s gone now. We have to take it on the chin and get three points behind Fleetwood again by beating Luton tomorrow.

“Everybody was down after Saturday and it’s hard to take when you get yourself so close to where you want to be but, I don’t care if you are Manchester United or Arsenal, if you can’t afford to lose one home game without your season being supposedly finished that’s a massive ask.

“It still is now. With four games to go, we’ve got to win them all.

“Weirder things have happened in football and, if we do that, we’ll finish on 78 points. We would be unlucky to miss out with that amount of points, so we can either throw the towel in or take on Luton knowing the game now means the world to us.

“Fleetwood still have to play Kidderminster and we have to prove we are man enough and have the character and mental strength to bounce back.”

A failure to convert chances once more cost City dear, while the visitors netted from their first two shots on target in the 26th and 74th minutes.

The Minstermen chief added: “We started brightly but it comes down to chances. You have to be ruthless and we weren’t.

“We’ve missed chances galore during the last few weeks and should have got ourselves a couple more points. The longer the game went on and we weren’t taking our chances, it gave them more heart.”

Mills was also unhappy with the nature of the goals his team conceded.

“Ben Wilkinson got in too easily with a run into the box for their first,” he said.

“Then Dan Parslow did not drop when he should have done and Kyle Perry got in behind him for the second.”