Senior service is poised for a huge return as York City attempt to recover from a 'manager's nightmare'.

Nothing doing: City striker Richard Cresswell draws a blank again as he challenges Oldham 'keeper Gary Kelly. Picture: Garry Atkinson

City's 1-0 defeat at home to Oldham dropped them back into the bottom half of the Second Division and left the Minstermen clutching a sole point from their last four League outings.

That lone reward was scraped out of the previous home outing against Reading, a sequence that was not lost on disheartened City boss Alan Little.

As he surveyed the fourth reverse of the campaign at Bootham Crescent Little sighed: "This has been a manager's nightmare. How many times has this happened at York City? They get all the accolades from the 1-1 draw against Reading when they should have won and yet for the next match they don't do the business.

"You guys rightly praise the likes of Richard Cresswell, Martin Garratt and the return of Alan Pouton, yet at the end of the day they are inconsistent.

"They are exciting, bright youngsters. They are great kids, who are going to be tremendous players of the future, but I think today we could have done with more experience. That was the difference today."

Little was scathing of his entire team for their first-half performance in particular.

"We started okay, but then we never got a grip on the game. We were outnumbered in midfield and we were short of passion," he said.

"It was as if there was a spark missing. We went out there very flat and it took a kick-start at half-time to get them going.

"I would have settled for the second-half performance if we had done the same in the first-half. At least we then showed some endeavour.

"You can look at systems, but it's about endeavour. In the second-half I got that and commitment. They showed they could have a go and they had Oldham back-pedalling so they had nine men behind the ball.

"It's about what's under the shirt. But it took us 45 minutes to get to see what's under their shirts."

The lone exception to the criticism was defender Tony Barras, whom the City manager described as 'superb' after being the butt of a lot of flak recently.

Little said he would spend the next five days leading up to Friday night's excursion to lowly Colchester to ponder possible changes.

But he hinted he could turn to his more experienced brigade for the trip to Layer Road and the bid to halt the rot that is slowly starting to creep into the Minstermen's ranks. That would mean a return from suspension for Mark Tinkler and the possible recall of fit-again duo Neil Thompson and Steve Agnew.

"We've missed a Tinkler today. We've missed an Agnew and his physical presence and ability to play. We've got one point out of four games and that's not good enough."

Allison runs rule over Richard

Striker Richard Cresswell, will clamber out of his mini-goal drought, said former top-flight striker Andy Ritchie.

The Oldham Athletic manager paid a handsome tribute to the 21-year-old Cresswell, whose barren run has reached five games since he notched his 16th of the term at Wycombe two days into the new year.

And the praise from Ritchie, himself a potent forward during years at the highest level with Manchester United, Leeds United and Oldham, came just as Premiership champions Arsenal were the latest big club to check out City's 21-year-old leading marksman.

One-time Manchester City and Crystal Palace boss Malcolm Allison was at Bootham Crescent on Saturday on a scouting mission for Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger.

Declared Oldham leader Ritchie: "Cresswell is a good player. He holds the ball up so well, has good technique and a powerful physical presence.

He will always carve out chances in a game and he will score goals.

"I think York City will have a hard job to keep hold of him here for much longer."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.