GATESHEAD manager Rob Elliot was 'gutted' to lose out to York City on New Year's Day, with the Heed boss feeling that his side dominated the contest.

Elliot refused to panic after the defeat and felt that York set-up well for the clash, with the Gateshead boss again crediting Neal Ardley for how his team dealt with the Heed's threat.

Elliot also confirmed that Ed Francis' first-half injury was potentially a serious one, and believed that if Marcus Dinanga's first-half penalty against George Sykes-Kenworthy had been successful, then Gateshead would have gone on to comfortably win the clash.

“I’m a bit gutted and disappointed really, it was two bad moments from us for the goals to concede," Elliot told the Gateshead media team.

"It was situations we’ve talked about, in terms of fouling them higher up the pitch and keeping the ball against teams that counter, keeping them wide and not opening up the goal.

"We were struggling with injuries and Ed (Francis) has now got a really serious injury so we’ve now lost him.

"It’s not a great night overall, we dominated the game but just couldn’t put the ball into the back of the net.

"If we score that penalty then I think we go on and win that game comfortably, but unfortunately we were limited with what we could do so we had to go and put Louie up front and I thought he caused problems and did well.

"We just couldn’t find that finishing and it was key moments really, the penalty and we didn’t defend in two or three moments so we end up losing 2-0 in a game that we have dominated again.

"It’s really disappointing and it’s hard to swallow at the moment, but normally there is a grounding and a consistency in the way that we are playing, which is really good.

"Neal Ardley is a fantastic manager and he’s set them up really well, but they were playing with ten men behind the ball on the edge of their box, it’s a massive compliment and we’ve got to find ways to defeat that really and to get the goals.

"I can’t fault the lads in anyway, we’ve just got to learn from those moments.

"We’ve got a young team, and what they’re doing this season is absolutely tremendous, we’ve just got to narrow down those moments in games."

Elliot refused to panic over the result, and felt that Sykes-Kenworthy's man-of-the-match award was a compliment to the performance of his side.

“We don’t want to get too low, it’s one loss and two games that we have dominated in every department, and a fantastic win at Oldham.

"It’s not anything we need to panic about, it’s a bad result over a couple of moments but I thought we dominated the game and the fans were excellent with us again.

"We worked on getting more crosses into the box and the patterns, which we did and we got more crosses into their box, but they’ve got five or six lads in the box which makes it hard.

"They won’t come out of the box either because it gives us space and they know that we’ll play around them.

"Their goalie gets man-of-the-match, I know he saved their penalty, but they’ve won 2-0 at home and their goalie has got man-of-the-match which is probably a reflection of the game. It’s really frustrating.”