YORK City manager Neal Ardley has credited his team’s spirit to produce a match-winning performance away from home against Dagenham & Redbridge.
A late equaliser from Lenell John-Lewis cancelled out Ryan Hill’s opener on the hour mark, before Dipo Akinyemi secured a crucial three points with a 95th minute winner for the Minstermen on Tuesday night.
Ardley was pleased with his side’s spirit to leave East London with three points, but was disappointed with a hugely underwhelming first-half performance, and felt that his side were fortunate to still be in the game.
“I thought we got away with a win today, we could have been out of the game.” Ardley told BBC Radio York.
“To be fair to the players I challenged them at half-time, I didn’t have a go at them.
“I said ‘what can I do to change this second half’, and they said ‘there’s nothing, this is down to us’.
“To be fair they stepped up in the second half.
“I’m a little bit all over the shop! I thought we were really, really poor in the first half and I think we got away with a couple of moments where if they had made it 2-0, then the game would have been dead and buried.
“They’re the negatives, every game is different. The Solihull game was slower with more patient build-up, but today they got in our faces and pressed us high and we never dealt with it.
“There was only really one team on the front foot, I had to make a couple of subs early because I felt like we needed to add a little bit of knowhow and experience in, especially with Lenny’s muscle.
“I think it worked, and we were lucky to come in at 0-0 at half-time.
“In the second half I thought we started miles better, there were a couple of tweaks and a half-time team talk and they came out and had a real go.
“Then they scored against the run of play, we got a bit of fortunate as they had a couple of moments that were one-on-one.
“We got away with that, and we had to stay with a bit of character.
“One thing we are trying to instil is a bit of spirit and a bit of team character, and I thought they showed it as the game roared on.
“Eventually we finished as the better team.
“We want to win games and I thought that in the first-half I was praying to get in at 0-0.
“I was trying to somehow keep us in the game as best as I could so I could make changes at half-time and do what we needed to do.
“I thought we was miles better in the second half, I know they had a few moments where they got in one-on-one, but generally we were on the front foot in the second half.
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