Adam Hinshelwood responds to York City’s 3-1 defeat to Boston United

After Tyrese Sinclair had powered York into an early lead with an incredible long-ranged strike, a collapse followed as Boston registered just their fourth league win of the campaign.

Goals from Connor Teale, Jimmy Knowles and Jacob Hazel meant that City headed home from Lincolnshire empty-handed, dropping to third in the National League as a result.

Hinshelwood addressed the defeat and believes that the game could have been a completely different prospect if the Minstermen had taken some first-half chances, whilst explaining how he and his coaching team got their game plan wrong.

“It’s easy to say that [it was abysmal] after a 3-1 defeat, but could we not have been leading at half-time?” Hinshelwood noted.

“If we’re leading at half-time, then the game’s not so abysmal and it’s different.

“It’s a game of chances in both boxes, they didn’t need many chances to score and it is abysmal at the end, when we’re trying to score goals to get back into the game.

“The game should be out of sight by then, and it wasn’t. That’s been our achilles heel too often.

“Ollie Pearce had two glorious chances inside the six-yard box, and you’ve got to score them.

“If you don’t score them, then you leave yourself open and our defending, we set high standards on Tuesday and we didn’t defend our box well enough.

“It’s something for us to look at, they defended in the middle of the pitch well.

“The second-half, I’ve got to look at myself and the coaching staff and tactically have a better game plan.

“We’ve probably left it too long as the same shape, stuff like that where I’ve got to hold my hands up.

“I’ve got to look at myself first and I will do, because the second-half tactically we’ve got to come up with a better game plan than we did.

“It just shows that if we leave the players to their own vices, that’s what you get.

“Too many times we’ve backed the players to go and deliver, and tactically we’ve got to come up with the answers for this group of players.

“At half-time we didn’t do that, so we’ve got to look at ourselves.”

Hinshelwood also responded to criticism from supporters for opting to make changes to the starting 11, despite a 2-0 win over Oldham Athletic on the Tuesday prior.

The boss admitted that fitness had come into his thinking when changing the team from Oldham, and saw it as a learning curve in his experience as a manager.

Hinshelwood responded: “Maybe the fans are 100 per cent right, I went over there and they said ‘why are you changing a winning team?’.

“It’s hard as well, at this stage of the season it’s Saturday to Tuesday and we try to play with a high intensity, and I thought that the players were looking a bit tired after 60 minutes the other night.

“I’ve probably got to look at it yeah, keep playing the same team and when that team loses and they look a little bit tired, then I don’t have to take responsibility.

“I do take full responsibility, I’ve done it all season, I’ve rotated the team around and when you win, you get the plaudits and you’re an unbelievable manager, and when you lose you’re rubbish and shouldn’t change it.

“I know that, I’m not deluded, there’s nothing I don’t take full responsibility for.

“I learn from it obviously and I do think that when we don’t have Marv and Batts in the middle of the pitch away from home, that’s a bit of a problem for us.

“Then certain games when a team drops in like that and defends in the middle of the pitch, I don’t know if we have enough creativity as well.

“It’s getting that balance right, but we’ll work hard.

“It’s not the time to start pointing fingers, I’m big enough to take full responsibility myself.”