That was Adam Hinshelwood’s brutally honest assessment of the National League title race after York City whimpered to a 2-1 defeat to Braintree Town.
York travelled to Braintree in the National League, 11 points adrift of the current leaders Barnet with one game in hand.
City were hoping to continue their pursuit of Barnet by putting the pressure on the Bees, who were playing at the later kick-off of 5.30pm on their travels to Altrincham.
However, after Braintree’s Jermaine Francis bundled the ball over Harrison Male’s goal line in the second-half, the Minstermen fell to an admittedly deserved defeat in Essex.
Hinshelwood openly questioned his players’ determination after the loss, and conceded defeat in the push for the title with eight matches now remaining of the season.
“Before today I didn’t think so [that the title race was wrapped up] and that was the message to the players.
“Barnet had the late kick-off and all we can do is put pressure on them, but by losing, I think it’s over now to be honest.
“All we can do is do all that we can to finish second in the league.
“They’re not going to drop the points and I can’t see us at the minute stringing what’s needed, eight wins.
“I don’t know why that is, but we’ve got to find a way to be better in each game.
“We show a grit and a determination one week and then we show that this week.
“Ultimately, the top teams are just relentless, they’ve got that determination no matter what.
REPORT: Braintree Town 2-1 York City
“Whereas with this group, we have to motivate them all of the time and it’s getting tough constantly at half-time, where I’m going in and are being aggressive to try and get that determination out of them.
“Maybe its my fault for the recruitment because we want to play a style of football, but I don’t even think we showed that today, that we were a good football team, I thought that they were better.
“They were better footballers and we lost the battle, so we come away thinking what kind of team are we.
“There’s that side of it where we can’t play the ball either.
“There’s lots of questions to be answered. I’m sure a lot of people will look at myself, and rightly so.
“All these plaudits and all of that, we haven’t done nothing.
“We’ve come and have taken the club on, I’m fed up of hearing about how far we have come from last season.
“Just judge on this season, and for me, for how well we’ve done in games, we haven’t got enough points on the board.
“We’ve handed the title to Barnet, rather than them take it off us, we’ve handed it to them.
“There’s lessons to be learned for myself, but we’ve got to be better.
“We’ve got to show more, there’s eight games to go and we’re still going to finish with as high of a points tally as we can.
“We’ll do all that we can to try and win those eight games, but like I say, it’s down to us to be better.
“We show it one week and then not the next.”
On the actual defeat, Hinshelwood was equally and understandably angry after the performance, claiming that Braintree simply wanted the three points more than his York side.
Hinshelwood believed that City were ‘second best’ for the match, and that his side failed to adapt to playing on a rougher surface than previous pitches that his team have become accustomed to.
The boss admitted: “We were second best.
“We looked like the team that made the journey to Gateshead on Tuesday night.
“Physically, I thought we looked poor, when the ball went up to them it got help up and people were anticipating that the ball was going to go in behind when they were making runs, he then wins a flick on and we’re on our heels.
“We try and play a certain way and then when you come to games like today, it’s a different challenge.
“We’ve got to be prepared to adapt to whatever the challenge is, and I think we’ve got too many that can’t adapt to that change or that challenge.
“Ultimately, that’s where we’ve come unstuck all season.
“Ty [Sinclair] has one where it’s been cleared off of the line, that determination to get back on the line and clear it, we’re lacking.
“I always look at myself and take responsibility but there’s got to come a time as an individual when you cross that white line.
“I gave each player an individual challenge and they all had players to mark, and ultimately we’ve lost too many of them individual battles all over the pitch.”
Hinshelwood also responded to questions about change of tactics that were posed to him after the match, whilst admitting that if Sinclair’s second-half strike had gone in – rather than being cleared off of the line – then he felt it would have been a different contest.
“Don’t get me wrong, the big moment is the clearance off of the line – if we go 2-1 up, it’s a completely different game.
“We can’t just rely on that, we’ve come here and we’ve been poor.
“Supporters are asking me after the game why we change tactics, and if we try to play football on that [pitch] then it’s going to end up one way.
“You’ve got to come up with other ways, was it tactical why we lost today, or was it just a case of our players coming second to a team that look hungry and a bit more determined?
“That’s always the worse kind of way to lose and we’re really disappointed, disappointed for our fans.”
