That was the verdict of manager Adam Hinshelwood, after his side fell to a 2-1 defeat to Altrincham on Tuesday evening.
York dominated possession for large parts of the match, but struggled to create which proved costly in the first-half.
An own goal from Josh Stones, through no real fault of his own, gifted Altrincham the lead in the first-half.
City welcomed half-time in a very flat feeling LNER Community Stadium, and gave the needed response early in the second 45, as Alex Hunt curled home an impressive strike from the edge of the area.
But the Minstermen’s defensive mishaps proved to be a problem as a miscommunication allowed substitute Justin Amaluzor to sneak in between Callum Howe and Harrison Male, poking the ball into the empty net.
This was despite York’s relentless attack on the Altrincham goal, with Ollie Pearce having a strike cleared off of the line, Callum Howe heading against the bar, Hunt being spectacularly denied by Rob Lainton and Junior Luamba being kept out from a tight angle.
Hinshelwood felt his side were understandably unlucky to head home empty-handed, especially given his side’s recent record against Altrincham – having beaten the Robins just once since 2011.
“There’s got to be some sort of hoodoo with Altrincham,” Hinshelwood joked.
“I thought that in large spells, it was a really good performance.
“On another day, Ollie’s shot goes in, the defender didn’t know what he was doing with it and managed to get it over the bar, and Callum Howe’s header at the end.
“As soon as that happens, and there were a couple of other moments, Junior could have let it go out for a corner but tries to keep it in, we get into a good area and Cam John crosses it and it comes back off of him, which is again, another good opportunity.
“In the main, the team had a proper go and we played aggressive football today.
“It was probably not how we wanted to play, we wanted to play more balls from back to front but we had to find other ways.
“We was very unlucky not to do that today.
“The goal that we did score was probably one of the more difficult chances in the game.
“That’s how it goes, there was endeavour there, we kept going and it can just happen in football.
“We’ve lost games this year where we’ve been really disappointed, especially at their place, we were poor and gifted them three goals.
“To a man today, I thought we arguably the better team and things just didn’t fall for us.
“I never like to rely on luck or talk about luck or decisions, but we just didn’t find the quality when it mattered in the final third.”
One vexation for Hinshelwood was the manner of goals which City conceded, which were both mostly their own doing.
An attempted clearance from Tyrese Sinclair ricocheted off of the back of Stones’ head, finding the bottom corner of Male’s goal, before York failed to track their man, allowing Amaluzor to win the match for Altrincham.
Speaking on the conceded goals, Hinshelwood vented: “It’s a terrible decision to make the tackle, it comes into the box and I think this is our luck.
“Ty’s headed it onto the back of Josh Stones’ head and it’s gone in, it’s a free header, can he head it out of there?
“That’s how things seem to go sometimes, we’ve got players in the right areas, we’ve made first contact and second contact and it’s gone into the back of our net.
“The second one is a killer, how you can let someone just run into your box as a wide player, you’ve got to track him.
“You can’t be passing on players there, it’s no time to pass players on.
“It’s a terrible decision and that’s maybe just the difference between us and the top teams, some of our players lose concentration in crucial moments of games.
“It’s the full-backs, he’s a wide player, you can’t just let him run.
“You’ve got to track him and we haven’t done that, they are the fine margins.
“We should have come in at 0-0, we lacked quality which is why I wanted to get Jeff on for a bit more composure with crosses into the box.
“On the day, their front three, if they had the chances that we had, they would have won the game.”
Tonight’s defeat sees York’s gap with Barnet at the top of the table stretch to nine points, although City do have a game in hand when they play Rochdale on March 25 (7.45pm).
Hinshelwood refused to give up faith on York’s title hopes, adding: “If they carry on and win every game, fair play, you’ve got to hold your hands up and say well done.
“We’re definitely not going to give up, like we have done all season really.
“It’s a massive game on Saturday now and we’ll try to bounce back and get three points.
“Everyone’s going to say that it’s done and dusted, all we’re going to do is take it one game at a time and keep showing that determination and that effort.
“If we show that little bit more quality when it matters, we’ll win more games than we’ll lose this season.
“We’ve probably played worse than that at times this year and have won games, that’s football unfortunately.
“We’re definitely not going to give up, we’ll keep going one game at a time and try get as many points as we can in the last 12 games.”
