CHRIS MILLINGTON expressed his fury as FC Halifax Town dropped to a late defeat at the hands of York City on Saturday.

After Jamie Cooke’s strike on the counter-attack had put Halifax in front in the first-half, York looked destined for a first defeat in two months against their Yorkshire rivals in the Vanarama National League.

However, City showed real fight as Malachi Fagan-Walcott first poked an effort past Sam Johnson in stoppage-time, before Ollie Pearce continued his rich vein of form with a last-ditch winner.

Halifax manager Millington admitted that he was both ‘furious’ and ‘fuming’ following the full-time whistle, and questioned the mentality of his players.

“I’m furious to be honest with you, I’m absolutely fuming,” Millington told club media.

“Over the course of the game, York were clearly the better team in the first-half and we were clearly the better team in the second-half.

“I’d say that over the balance of the attacks, we had the clearer cut chances and we should have won the game.

“As with Tuesday night at Rochdale, a weak mentality is starting to show.

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“I called it after the Newcastle under-21’s game, the weakness and the fragility, and it hurts me to say but the selfishness about parts of the group.

“That’s the problem.”

Millington felt that his Halifax side did not fear York and their patient passing style when it came to defending their own box, and spoke on the tactics he implemented to take control of the game for large parts of the second 45.

Millington continued: “They had some good build-up play and some good box entries, but by the time that they had worked the ball into our box, we had got bodies in there and we defended our box.

“We weren’t that worried, we didn’t feel under that much threat even though they did work the ball well through the third, because our press wasn’t right.

“When we fixed that, we looked a lot more controlled, we knew that they were vulnerable on the counter-attack with their full-backs inverting, it leaves space down the centre-halves over and over again.

“The goal has come from that, that’s where our opening occurs from because they leave themselves so open.

“We knew their vulnerabilities, we knew where we could hurt them.

“We knew that 45 per cent of their goals come in the last 15 minutes, so don’t stop.

“Yet, we’ve not been strong enough to see out by the end of it, and let’s be right, a relatively comfortable win.

“York will talk about the first-half and how much control they had, and they did, they had the ball.

“But I think the clear cut chances that we created in the second-half, we really should have done a lot more with.”