NEAL ARDLEY intends for York City to attack the match against Barnet on Saturday, and believes that his side can go toe-to-toe with anyone in the Vanarama National League.

York make the trip into Barnet on Saturday, February 24 (3pm) with the hopes of extending the gap between City and the relegation zone, with the Minstermen being just one point clear.

Whilst Barnet are nailed on favourites for the clash, sat in third position, Ardley has intentions of attacking the game, and feels as if it will be a much closer contest compared to September’s 4-2 defeat at the LNER Community Stadium.

“Anyone in this league can go toe-to-toe with anyone, maybe with the exception of Chesterfield more of then than not,” Ardley asserted.

“We’ve started to believe that we can give everyone a game.

“They played a couple of different shapes that I have prepped for tomorrow, but they are brave, really brave and earlier in the season their athleticism at the top end of the pitch with wing-backs was very impressive.

“It put you in a position where as a manager you think about whether you can press them high up, and at the time I don’t think we had the legs to press anyone at that point.

“They’re athletic at the back, they play a high line and want to get tight to you.

“They play their wing-backs almost as wingers and they played a boxed-in midfield, they want to overload you there.

“They’ve had their injuries and I like their manager, I get along well with their manager, this time around I’m looking at where we were at that point of the season and where they were, we were poles apart.

“I’d like to think, and I might be wrong but we’ll find out on Saturday, that we are closer.

“They might have some injuries, but we’re in a better place and I’d like to do some things differently for a different challenge.

“We’re trying to attack and create more chances, I know that it’s an issues and fans want us to create more, but in the Dorking game we created the highest expected goals of our last four games, and we lost 4-0. Everyone was really unhappy with the performance.

“The Dagenham game was the second highest, and the Oldham game was the lowest for both teams, it was like 0.5.

“That was like a 0-0 draw, yet everyone was delighted with the Oldham game because the expectation of beating Oldham was less than beating Dorking, yet we created miles more.

“I want to get that in the two’s. We need to try and get our expected goals in the two’s, because then you are really unlucky if you’re not scoring.”

Ardley also discussed Barnet boss Dean Brennan’s animated personality on the touchline, and explained why he prefers to be reserved from the side.

Ardley enthused to the Press: “We’ll have a row on the sidelines! He’s a great lad.

“Everyone does everything different in management, the way I look at it is that if I am too animated on the sides, rowing with the fourth or shouting at the players, then I’m doing no good for anybody.

“I can’t see the game or I can’t work out why we can’t get a foothold, or work out what we need to improve to make us better.

“My job on the sideline is to try and help the players to win the game, so I try not to shout at the players all the time.

“Every now and then they need a kick up the backside, but I try to not get too involved because it takes away from the job I am supposed to be doing for the 90 minutes.

“Dean likes to get stuck in and keep things going, that works for him and obviously they are up at the top.

“There are no qualms either way.”