ADAM HINSHELWOOD admitted that York City were ‘nowhere near good enough’ after suffering a 3-1 defeat to AFC Fylde.

Goals from Joe Westley, Ash Hunter and Jonathan Ustabasi meant that Will Smith’s first goal for York wasn’t able to earn City any needed points in their ongoing battle against relegation in the Vanarama National League, with the Minstermen now sat third from bottom after slipping another place.

Hinshelwood assessed his side’s performance and revealed that he felt as if his team struggled to understand the tactical decisions which he had laid out for them, admitting that City didn’t test opposing goalkeeper Theo Richardson enough.

“The second half in particular was nowhere near good enough,” Hinshelwood told BBC York.

“In the first half there were some bits there, but the tactics that were asked of the players in the second half was too confusing and they didn’t quite understand what was trying to be asked of them.

“I’ll learn from that and to keep everything simple with the position that we are in, it’s down to us to do that and to be a tougher team to play against.

“I wanted Batts (Dan Batty) to get on the ball a little bit deeper and to then play with two up the middle, so that they cut off the passes centrally.

“With that we wanted Danny Amos to drop down and he’s got a pull to his calf, we wanted Paddy (McLaughlin) to go into the middle of the pitch when Danny dropped out and it just looked like a bit of a mess.

“It’s down to myself to make sure that the players understand, I thought that they were fully aligned with what I expected but it definitely didn’t look that way.

“Maybe the learning is that we’ve got to make the messages clearer and have a clear game plan that we stick to for the whole game, and hopefully that will help us to be tougher to play against.

“All that is said and done and we can talk about tactics, but it’s a throw-in for the second goal and their lad is free to hit the far post, it’s a lack of concentration on the pitch as well.”

Hinshelwood went on to explain the tactical work which went into York’s initial equaliser, but was frustrated at City’s lack of prowess in front of goal.

Hinshelwood explained: “The set piece routines that we worked on, we watched Fylde defend set-pieces and knew that there could be a space at the front post there for Will, so we tried to work that one for the goal.

“Other than that, I thought that we didn’t work their goalkeeper nowhere near enough.

“We’ve got to look at it, we’ve got to be better, the players in there are all bitterly disappointed as well but we all need to stand up and take responsibility for what we have just produced there.

“It’s nowhere near the level but all we can do is keep working and keep grafting hard, relaying the messages and hoping that we’re a tougher team to play against come Saturday, because we have to be.”