YORK City manager Neal Ardley wants his wingers to step up to boost their numbers this season, ahead of the Minstermen’s trip to Dagenham & Redbridge.

Ardley has previous experience of getting the best out of his former wingers at past clubs, and now wants to see the same from the likes of Maziar Kouhyar, Zanda Siziba, Kai Kennedy and Callum Harriott.

The City boss wants to build ethics within his York side, defensively and going forward, and hopes that can start for tonight's trip to Dagenham (7.45pm).

“Everyone’s got to step up, Maz, Zanda, Kai Kennedy and Callum Harriott, they’ve been training and on the pitch but if you want to be playing then you’ve got to produce good numbers.” Ardley told the Press.

“I’ve come in and tried to implement some things I expect from different positions.

“Players have had opportunities and have been taken out of the squad because they haven’t fired, if you’re going to play with two wingers and two centre-forwards, then the wingers need to produce with and without the ball.

“So do your centre-forwards, if that’s not happening then you’re going to be a very open and easy team to play against.

“When I was at Solihull and at Notts, I had Callum Roberts and Enzio Boldewijn on the wings, and when at Solhull I had Joe Sbarra coming off of one wing and Ryan Barnett coming off of the other.

"What they gave and caused problems for the opposition was so great that you didn’t have to worry too much about what they give you without the ball.

“We’re not there, we’ve got to try and get there.”

Ardley wants to also improve defensive aspects of his York squad, and hopes to build ethics throughout the team.

“You’re trying to make the points and trying to build an ethic within our defenders and an ethic within our forwards, and the key messages we give is to try and improve them as players, that’s all we can do.

“We can’t defend like individuals, which is what we have been doing, we’ve got to get confidence into them because when you concede goals the first thing anyone thinks is ‘here we go again’.

“When you’re used to keeping clean sheets, you expect to keep them and are more disappointed when the opposition scores.

“We’re not there, we’ve got to try and get there.”

Ardley also insists on establishing a winning mentality at the Minstermen, and doesn’t want to accept any draws such as the Solihull result.

“I can’t look and accept a team that draws a game, they should win or lose and I’ve got to be better than that and hold them to higher standards than that.

“It’s always difficult, I’m not one to throw players under the bus and the boys are really having a go at doing everything right.

“They’re making some bad decisions and bad judgements at times, and mine, Coxy (Neil Cox, assistant manager) and Macca’s (Tony McMahon, first-team coach) jobs are to iron all of that out and create a team that fights for each other with a bit of spirit and momentum, we’re working hard on it.

“It’s part and parcel of the league, the biggest problem I’m facing of Saturday to Tuesday is the conditioning of the boys hasn’t quite set us up for this.

“If you’re robust and have had a really strong pre-season, you’re ready for them but we’re picking up loads of little injuries.

“Woodyard came off again on Saturday, Latty-Fairweather came off on Saturday and a lot of these niggles now are due to the first real run of Saturday’s to Tuesday’s of the season.

“That robustness of the squad is there and we’re paying the price for it.”

Ardley also went into detail on how he sets his side up, and how he prepares to get the best out of his York players.

“It can be you’ve got to work with the bodies you’ve got, but I’m not fussed about what system I play, all systems have got strengths and weaknesses.

“You have principles of play that you ingrain into your team, so whatever system we play there will be patterns, formations and certain positions that are expected to join in on attacks, to make forward runs.

“Sometimes that will be dictated by what you have available, other times it will be dictated because you feel it’s the best way to settle up.

“For example, in the Barnet game where we were 4-4-2, we felt we got a lot wrong without the ball and caused our own problems.

“We felt that in the Solihull game we needed to tweak that, and thought we looked very, very good without the ball and grew in the game with it.

“I don’t set my teams up to worry about the opposition, I set my teams up to get the best out of the players I have got available to me to try and win games of football.

“We’ve had limited time on the training pitch because you’re trying to recover the lads legs.

“We’ve done video analysis Friday morning, we’ve done it again with defenders and forwards separately.”