YORK City boss Gary Mills believes £60,000 man Jason Walker gives his Minstermen side something they didn’t have last season – the ability to hold up the ball.

The summer signing from Luton Town might not have got on the scoresheet against League One Hartlepool on Saturday, but still impressed with his retention of possession and his quick passing to bring other players into the game.

It’s a facet Mills – whose side travel to Halifax Town tonight (7.45pm) – feels his squad were lacking as they fell just short of the Blue Square Bet Premier play-offs last year and, combined with the manager’s firm belief in Walker’s ability to get goals, he reckons his team are already very confident in the former Barrow striker’s abilities.

“It’s the awareness and being more of a team player,” Mills said of Walker.

“Not only a good team player, but someone who will weigh in with goals. He’s a good goalscorer and I’m just delighted to have him here. I think he’s an excellent player, I’ve never hidden behind that fact. I think things are going well for him.

“It’s difficult up there sometimes, on your own, with the system that we play. You have got to have bodies up there to support him.

“But those bodies now know that when it goes up to him that it is going to stick.

“We had a problem last year where that didn’t happen. It creates negativity. It creates something in other players where they don’t go and make the run because they feel they are not going to get the ball.

“Now we have got that confidence that we have got somebody up there where that will happen.”

But Mills was quick to stress that his opinions were not “unfair” to Michael Rankine, who led the line last season but has now moved to League Two Aldershot.

“I am not being unfair to Michael Rankine,” he added. “He knows that wasn’t his strength.

“What Michael Rankine had he used very well. But, personally, I felt we needed someone – with the system that we play – that is capable of doing what I have said.

“My two and three midfielders, whoever is in there, have got to feel confident that when they go and join in with the strikers that he is going to play them in – so they can make that run. Believe me, they have got the confidence in Jason that this is going to happen.”