ADAM HINSHELWOOD was impressed by the perseverance of his York City side in their 2-0 away win over Dagenham & Redbridge.

A spirited effort from York saw two sides narrowly contest in East London, before substitution Lenell John-Lewis was introduced from the bench and knocked the ball past Elliot Justham with ten minutes remaining.

An injury to the linesman meant that an additional 14 minutes of stoppage-time were played, with City being forced to defend their box and set-pieces bravely.

With every man forward for Dagenham, including their goalkeeper, striker Ollie Pearce broke away to roll the ball into an empty net in the 113th minute.

The Minstermen kept their third clean sheet of the season in a hugely-impressive defensive performance, which pleased boss Hinshelwood.

“I was [happy] with the majority of it, it was a really hard-fought game and I thought that we got into some good areas in the first-half, had some good chances,” Hinshelwood spoke after the match.

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“We didn’t manage to take them, and then it makes it a tough, hard afternoon.

“If we take a couple of those chances in the first-half then we can really play our football, but again the squad has been needed.

“Two substitutes have come on, they’ve scored the goals. I bang on about the depth we have got in our squad because I really believe in that, and again it has come up trumps for us again.

“We were bitterly disappointed with our home performance with the big following that we got down, so I’m so happy with the supporters that have turned up today and are heading home happy.

“Perseverance is the key word for today.

“We had to keep going, we didn’t start the second-half well, we were camped in our half for the first 15 or 20 minutes.

“When we settled down, the substitutions made the difference with a little tweak to our shape by going into a 4-3-3 with Joe Felix rolling in, it gave us a bit of an edge.

“I’m really glad that they have taken on that instruction today. There’s loads for us to work on still, we left ourselves a bit open at times and when we were attacking we wanted to lock it down, which I thought was a big improvement.

“There’s still some distances when going forward, but full credit to the players, we really defended our box well in the second-half whilst under a lot of pressure, long throws, corners, but we defended it well.

“Defensively we locked it down a lot better today, it wasn’t all long balls and counter-attacks like it was against Boston.

“That was a good improvement. To keep a clean sheet, I always feel like we’re going to create chances and score goals, but it’s three clean sheets out of the first six games, which is a real positive and is something that I will be drilling into the players.

York City kept a third clean sheet of the campaign.York City kept a third clean sheet of the campaign. (Image: Tom Poole)

“We want to have a better defensive record this year and with the attacking players that we have got that can be introduced from the bench, Billy Chadwick, Ollie Pearce, Ricky Aguiar and Lenny, we have got attacking options.

“I’m really happy with what we have got, with that we’ve got to take pride in taking clean sheets and being a good team to play against.”

Hinshelwood also singled out the relentless display of Marvin Armstrong, who consistently pressed the Dagenham backline and forced the hosts into errors.

The York boss was delighted by the pressing aspects of City’s performance, and assured that this current York team is not the ‘finished article’, with work still to be done.

Hinshelwood continued: “A big part of our game is the press, we want to be a tough team to play against and we want to put the opposition under pressure.

“They really did that well in the first-half, Marv in particular, turned over the ball in good areas and put a great ball and wanted it back from Dips [Dipo Akinyemi].

“He couldn’t quite find a decent finish on the end of it.

“Again, the scary thing I think for this group is that there is still more to come.

“We’re definitely not the finished article, there is loads for us to work on and we’re showing signs of what we can do.”