The football club have so far recruited eight players to their ranks, whilst also seeing a number of faces depart the club after previously struggling for game time.
Uggla had previously alluded to the need for leaders within the City camp, a factor which he felt negatively impacted them in the play-offs, to add to an already talented and young squad.
Therefore he has been pleased with the blend that the club have managed to uncover so far, which has seen a lot of promotion experience from the Enterprise National League level join the York ranks.
“I think it’s getting the blend. Last year, if you look at the starting line-up that played against Oldham, for a lot of them that was their first proper full season,” Uggla told the York Hospital Ball podcast in their annual catch-up, which can be found in full HERE.
“They’d been at clubs, but you look at like an Alex Hunt, I don’t think he’d ever played that many games in a season in professional football anyways.
“Obviously it was [Ollie] Pearce’s first season in professional football, [Joe] Felix’s, Malachi Fagan-Walcott had never played that many games in a season.
“It’s about getting that blend, I think you’ve got fantastic players there, all of them that I named, and they will learn from that experience and be stronger from it.
“I do think there is a shift a little bit about getting that [proven winner], sometimes you’ll play these games that are just fights.
“On our day, we can play anyone off of the pitch, and we did last year.
“I went and spent time with Dean Brennan [Barnet manager] when the season ended and we spoke about the game where we went away, and he said he had to change it all for us.
“If they tried to play football against us, and it might be arrogant, but we play anyone off of the park, probably in the division above as well.
“Teams found a solution to play against us, which was to get aggressive and bully us a little bit, and it worked.
“We had to find an antidote for that, and I think we have.”
York had suffered heartbreak in the play-offs when a 3-0 defeat to Oldham Athletic confirmed that they would remain in the National League for another year, despite reaching an incredible 96 points.
However, Uggla has insisted that the club’s recruitment hasn’t changed dependant on the level, and reiterated his belief that the players brought in could play within the Football League, potentially even in Sky Bet League One.
Uggla also spoke on the need for good characters in the dressing room, something the admitted to getting wrong in his first season at the helm.
He explained: “We don’t have a plan A or a plan B – I think that would probably be more at the other end of the table.
“Maybe last year, if we were to go into regional football, then there would be a plan A or a plan B.
“With our recruitment, we always recruit for one year, so we believe that all of the players that we bring in, if we do go up, could do a job in the division above.
“A lot of them could probably do it in the division above that as well.
“100 per cent, you get references. I had long chats with Ollie Banks, I had a really long chat with Ash Palmer, the manager has had chats with different players too.
“We have to be sure, I think that in the first year we didn’t do anything like that, and you saw some of the characters that came in.
“They weren’t here for anything other than a pay day. It’s a mixture of getting character references right, but also incentivising contracts more so than just giving a lump wage each week.”
A big question posed to York in recent years is who is behind the recruitment, particularly with the recent departure of Director of Football Tony McMahon, and a lack of Head of Recruitment since David Stockdale left the club.
Uggla explained the process behind identifying players, confirming that it was usually through analysts and data staff that the club recruited, who would then be put forward to the management team and Adam Hinshelwood.
He detailed: “The identifying of players is usually not the coaching staff, it’s more the analysts and data people.
“They get put to the coaching staff and they’ll either say yes or no, and we go from there.
“It’ll be myself to talk to an agent or a player themselves, and sort of do that groundwork.
“Once we’re happy with everything, it’s a yes from me, it’s a yes from the recruitment guys and a yes from the manager – then we’re good to go. That’s how it works.
“If Adam has a player that he likes, then he can put the player forward.
“It will get put through the process, but I can turn around and go ‘it’s not really for us’.
“Equally, we can go ‘we really like this guy, what do you think Adam’ and he can go away, look at his clips, his data, and if he comes back and goes ‘no, it’s not really for me’, then we don’t do it.
“If you’re in Adam’s position, your main focus is that squad of players that you have, the next match and training.
“You don’t really have the time to know what’s going on in the National League South, the National League North, League Two, knowing what players are available and what aren’t available.
“If you put all of that on someone’s plate, it’s probably too much.
“That way of doing it is probably outdated, and I know that a lot of people think that that is how it should be done, but I disagree massively.
“I think that if you have one point of failure and leave all of your recruitment to one person, then that person ends up leaving, your foundations aren’t very strong.
“Adam has been unbelievable at putting what the ownership group wants into the club, which is that style of play, and we wouldn’t sign him a player that doesn’t fit that style of play.
“With recruitment, it’s very much a collaborative thing, but I see it a lot where people go ‘is this that persons signing’ or ‘is it that persons signing’, but no, it’s not, it’s a York City signing.
“Some will work out, some won’t work out, but there’s no one where the manager goes that he doesn’t want him, and we sign him – that doesn’t happen.”
Uggla used the example of the model with Brighton & Hove Albion and Bournemouth have been known to implement, recruiting players from afar that the manager most likely has no previous knowledge of.
He believes that it is the way forward following on from the recent success of those Premier League clubs, saying: “With Arsenal you had [Arsene] Wenger doing everything, you had Fergie [Sir Alex Ferguson] at Man United doing everything, but I think it’s outdated.
“I know we’re talking about top, top clubs here, but you look at the likes of Brighton.
“There’s no way when [Moises] Caicedo or those guys come, or at Bournemouth when [Milos] Kerkez came in, there’s no way that when they came in, the manager had a clue who they are.
“The method and the way that they recruit is being tied and tested, and they believe in it, they get it right more often than they get it wrong.”
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