Adam Hinshelwood’s assessment of York City’s defeat to Sutton United

A brace from Will Davies put Sutton in the driving seat during a bleak first-half for York, before Dipo Akinyemi gifted some hope with a late consolation for City.

In the end, there was never enough from the Minstermen to claim anything from the game, with frustrations boiling over as Jeff King was shown a red card during the aftermath of the full-time whistle.

Hinshelwood refused to make excuses for the performance but did question the mentality of his players after failing to show the needed passion in the first-half.

The frustrated York boss assessed: “We said about having a two week break and blimey, it looked like we was still on our holidays.

“I said to the boys before that everyone talks about results going our way, but it means nothing if we can’t get up.

“In the first time in a long time, especially here at home, the first-half was way off it in terms of competing.

“We talk about our style and how we want to play but that’s irrelevant if you’re not going to do the other side of the game, and we didn’t do that well enough.

“The corner, we don’t concede too many from corners, but it was just a ball in the box and their lad looked like he wanted to win it. He’s obviously been at the club and he’s playing with a bit of hunger.

“I keep saying to the players, and I think that they laugh at me the amount I say it now, but that annoyed mindset if you’re not playing in the team needs to be instilled in you from the start.

“He’s playing against his old team so he’s got that mindset, that’s what it is at this level, you’ve got to play with that little bit of annoyance and we didn’t have that in the first-half.

“I was really disappointed when they scored that second goal, when you’re playing at this level, to go 2-0 down as we did, you’re going to have a mountain to climb.

“We can’t make any excuses at all.

“We haven’t seen it too often but it’s got to be instilled at you at this level, to compete and fight.

“If you don’t do that, you make it easy for the opposition and that was us today.

“Maybe we’ll look at the team selection and the shape, obviously that’s my job to do, to look at that.

“But for all of the times that there are chances, there are players back.

“Dipo has gone down here for the second goal, it’s then been flipped into the channel and there’s a three v two to deal with.

“Their lads shows more hunger and desire to get on the end of it, chasing lost causes, and they end up scoring from it.

“If we’re going to let that happen, then it’s going to be tough.

“We can’t be too critical of the players because they’ve been excellent all season, but we can be very critical of the first 45 today because it was nowhere near our level that we’ve set.”

The referee was a talking point of the match, with City supporters showing their frustration towards the officiating on display at the LNER Community Stadium.

With cards being shown to Dipo Akinyemi, Josh Stones, King and Tyrese Sinclair, York were victims of their own frustration, with King even being sent off during the aftermath of the full-time whistle as a brawl carried out.

“I just thought that it was a bit of a sit on the fence kind of performance from him,” Hinshelwood judged.

“He was quite a way away from a lot of the action, when there were decisions to be made, he always took the easy option.

“We won’t blame the two week break, we won’t blame the referees, we’ll look at ourselves and take full responsibility that we weren’t good enough to try and be better come Tuesday night.

“It’s not what I want to see to be honest, I want to see that passion from the start of the game when you can do something about it.

“There’s no good doing it when you’re 2-0 down or are at 2-1 and have a chance to get back into the game.

“It’s the hunger, the mindset that you have to pay with from the outset.

“I’m sure that the players look at me and laugh because I keep on drumming it into them, but it’s so important.

“Silly bookings and reacting to stuff is unprofessional, it’s not what I want to see.

“I want to see our talking done on the football pitch and in the 90 minutes, I don’t want that to creep into our game.”