NIGEL Worthington is ready to enter talks about staying on as York City manager next season.
The Minstermen secured their Football League status with a 1-0 victory at Dagenham & Redbridge with Worthington overseeing a run of 14 points from a possible 18 during the last six games of the season.
City’s board of directors now want Worthington to carry on into the 2013/14 campaign and the former Norwich and Northern Ireland chief is open to that prospect.
The Minstermen, who needed a point to be sure of survival before Saturday’s game, left East London with all three thanks to captain Chris Smith’s 67th-minute goal.
Victory meant City actually ended the season 17th, while third-bottom Dagenham also stayed up as Barnet were relegated along with Aldershot following a 2-0 defeat at Northampton.
Having succeeded Gary Mills as manager early last month, Worthington has steered the club to safety following a demoralising run of 16 games without a win and, on his own future, the former Sheffield Wednesday full-back said: “It’s early days and things have to be looked at.
“The dust has to settle and then we can go from there. My remit was to come in and help the club out and I am delighted that myself, Steve Torpey, Fred Barber, Jeff Miller and Rob Batty, the kit man, have been able to do that because there is a team behind the team.”
Worthington did confirm that he will now be making decisions on the 16 out-of-contract players at the club.
The current deals of Smith, Matty Blair, Lee Bullock, Jon Challinor, Ashley Chambers, Chris Doig, Ben Everson, Scott Kerr, David McGurk, Paddy McLaughlin, Lanre Oyebanjo, Dan Parslow, Tom Platt, Michael Potts, Jamie Reed and Jason Walker all expire this summer, while on-loan trio Adam Reed, Jack O’Connell and Arron Jameson will all be returning to their parent clubs.
As it stands, the Minstermen have just six players – Tom Allan, Michael Coulson, Jamal Fyfield, Michael Ingham, David McDaid and John McReady – on their books for next season.
Fyfield and McDaid have played peripheral roles under Worthington, however, with McReady failing to make any of the new manager’s first-team squads.
On the task in hand, the Minstermen boss added: “It will take the early part of this week to deal with different situations before saying ‘cheerio’ to the players for the summer, so there’s still a bit of work to be done.”
But Worthington went on to hail the whole squad for their successful battle to beat the drop, saying: “We have got there and I am delighted for everybody.
“Saturday was a great day for the football club and a great achievement by the players. We have ended up staying up in style and the players have worked hard to get some excellent results.
“They have come on in leaps and bounds and it has been a real team and squad effort.”
Almost 1,200 City supporters made the trip south and Worthington once more highlighted their importance to the final outcome.
“I believe if you work together as a club, no matter what part of it you are, you can go a long way,” he reasoned. “It’s been difficult for the supporters but they’ve backed us all the way through and they have got their just rewards.
“They really were our 12th man on Saturday and having 1,200 there was phenomenal. I’m delighted for them and the directors and, hopefully, everyone can relax now, breathe easier and look forward.”
Addressing the performance at Dagenham, Worthington admitted his team can play better but praised the resilience that resulted in a fourth clean sheet from six games.
He said: “In the first half we were a bit under the cosh. There was a strong breeze against us and it was difficult getting out of our half.
“Dagenham also put us under pressure and we didn’t play as well as we have been doing. I think the situation might have been in the back of some of our players’ minds in the first half but we calmed them down at half-time and, while we didn’t create too much in the second half, we got that all important goal.
“You can’t play well all the time. There are different ways to win games of football and we showed a resilience to get the result.
“We maintained our shape and discipline and kept a clean sheet, which we’ve got better at doing over the course of games. We kept getting headers and blocks in and the double save from Ingham towards the end was absolutely outstanding.”
For the majority of the afternoon, Worthington also stayed faithful to his pre-match vow that he would ignore the drama that was unfolding at other grounds.
“I didn’t have a clue about the other results before I asked a member of the Dagenham staff if they were safe near the end,” he revealed.
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