MICHAEL MORTON admitted that his York City side were 'not good enough' in their 1-0 defeat to Kidderminster Harriers. 

A late header from former York striker Amari Morgan-Smith handed Kidderminster the three points, seeing City begin the Vanarama National League season with back-to-back defeats. 

Morton admitted that he knew his side weren't up to standards, and explained that he and his staff took responsibility for the defeat.

“It was not good enough. We were absolutely miles off of it, and that’s down to us as staff." Morton confessed.

“We had a game plan that we wanted to go and execute, we just started sloppy and it was slow, we didn’t look good in the transition and we lost so many duels.

“It set the tempo early doors where they played the first ball into the corner and we lost two headers.

“It can all be nice but especially with centre-halves that’s where your money is at, we didn’t pick up the seconds and when we did get control things just weren’t quick enough.

“We got the ball to (Quevin) Castro and Dan (Pybus) but we should have done that over, and over again, they were solid and in the shape they were organised.

“It’s just frustrating, on the turnovers they got out too easy.

"Look at the second half, we came out and started well, then they got a goal kick, we didn’t win the header, we miss the seconds and we’re defending down there for five minutes.

"We then get control again, play long and it drops into the nine, he gets onto us and we’ve got a back three, we need to be dealing with that.

"That’s the dark arts of the game, I felt we missed a lot of our experienced players today."

Morton was frustrated by the result, and explained the tactical thinking behind using a back three for the second week running.

“You want to be on the front foot, you can see the spaces and it’s about move the ball quickly into the pockets.

"It was just out of pace, it was slow, we didn’t get it across the back three quick enough. You could see we did do it once and got the ball to Levi [Andoh] and it looked good, we just didn’t do it enough.

"It’s frustrating and it starts with us as staff, to drive them standards and make sure it’s better.

“They played against Woking last weekend and Woking played a back four, their two strikers run their centre-halves ragged.

"We’ve gone to a back three out so we can secure in possession but out of possession two can get tight and one can cover.

"You don’t utilise that spare and it gets scruffy, we know they won’t play us up against their back three so we’ve tried to run deep.

"When we did it you could see their back three didn’t want to come out. But we didn’t do it quick enough, there’s a lot of things to look at.

"The stats fall on me, and there’s a lot to do for Tuesday.”