Terry Dolan believes York City's sorry season could be on the turn.

Last night's 1-0 defeat at the hands of runaway Division Three leaders Chesterfield leaves City still searching for their first point of 2001.

But it was much improved performance from the Minstermen to ease the pressure on the City chief, who praised his player's commitment to the Bootham Crescent cause.

"Anybody who was at the game couldn't fault our players for effort and that is something we have been asking for over recent weeks," said Dolan.

"I have seen enough in the first-half last Saturday and again tonight to realise we might have turned the corner, certainly not results wise but performance wise, which will give everyone encouragement."

The City chief is now looking for his players to take that effort into Saturday's trip to Blackpool and beyond.

"They have set a standard from a point of view of work rate and we have got to continue that," he said.

"If we can continue that we will get out of trouble.

"People talk about playing different systems and we should be doing this and we should be doing that but at the end of the day if you work hard enough you get your rewards.

"We worked hard enough but didn't get our rewards but as long as we can continue doing that no matter what system we are playing we will get out of trouble."

Particularly pleasing for the City chief, who was robbed of the services of Darren Patterson due to a slight Achilles problem, were the performances of Barry Jones and Neville Stamp, restored to the team at the expense of Matt Hocking and Mark Bower.

An early injury to Alex Mathie also provided top scorer David McNiven with an opportunity to stake a claim for a return to the starting line-up.

The City manager is planning to look at the match video before deciding whether Marc Thompson will be disciplined following his second-half dismissal for two bookable offences.

Updated: 09:49 Wednesday, January 24, 2001