YORK City manager Neal Ardley praised the work rate of his players after Callum Howe’s late goal earned a 1-1 draw with Maidenhead United.

Ardley’s side were at a disadvantage from 20 minutes onwards, with midfielder Alex Woodyard being shown a straight red card.

But after Ashley Nathaniel-George handed the hosts the lead in the second-half, a spirited effort was capped off by Callum Howe to earn an important point for City.

“The shift the boys put in, and I said that it’s the least the fans can expect, they will run through a brick wall for the shirt and I honestly think they did today,” Enthused Ardley.

“The work the boys have got through is excellent, as staff we were just trying to make sure that they understood how we were going to defend in the shape and they did.”

However, Ardley didn’t agree with the referee’s decision to send off Woodyard, and was disappointed with the actions of the fourth official.

“I didn’t think we started well enough in the first 20 minutes, we didn’t carry on how we played on Tuesday.” Ardley admitted.

“But the sending off was a pivotal moment, to go 80 minutes with ten men away from home, it was right in front of me and I didn’t think it was  sending off.

“The fourth official gave it, the referee walked over to see what he thought and the fourth official said he had gone a bit high and over the top.

“The ref has got the red card out, so for me it’s the fourth official who has made the decision.

“I got booked for telling the fourth official that he made the decision, I don’t know why that is a booking.

“It’s tough then with ten men, we didn’t get it right at first because they were overloading us, so we made a couple of subs at half-time because we felt we needed a little more experience in there.

“I thought we were coping with it quite well, but then obviously the penalty comes and that’s a moment.

“There goal was a deflection, a big, wicked deflection, he shoots and it’s going straight at George (Sykes-Kenworthy), but it comes off of the stud of one of our players and goes in.

”You think that it’s really not our day, and at the point me and Coxy (Neil Cox, assistant manager) said that we have nothing to lose, let’s go 4-2-3 and we pushed high and went man-to-man at the back.

“We knew that we might lose 2-0, but we needed to get something from the game.

“We had a great spell and scored, a great goal and assist, and at that point we thought to go back to the five again and take what we’ve got.”