A NUMBER of York City players who featured in last weekend's Isuzu FA Trophy defeat at Nantwich Town have rejected loan moves away from the club.

Manager Neal Ardley rotated his squad for the tie, but was left bitterly disappointed as the Minstermen failed to overturn a three-goal deficit against their Pitching in Northern Premier League division one west opponents - despite late goals from captain Lenell John-Lewis and Zanda Siziba.

Regardless of the result, he admits that he learned a lot about both those making their returns from injury and those who may benefit from a loan away from the club.

But whilst some players - including Siziba, Quevin Castro, Scott Barrow and Kevin Joshua - have been made available for loans, he is not placing them in the shop window.

“I think that there’s some talent there, but there’s not enough knowhow,” Ardley admitted of what he learned from the tie.

“For anybody, if we put you in the position of being the manager of York City Football Club, where we are in the league down the bottom and I said ‘pick your 16-man squad that you need week in, week out’, the first thing you’re going to look for is trust.

“I need to trust whoever I’ve got on that pitch to do the stuff that doesn’t mean that we get exposed, that doesn’t mean that we concede goals, that we see reliability with the ball and decision-making.

“But you need to trust who you’re putting on the pitch and that’s what I keep trying to hammer home to the younger lads and those lads coming back from injury.

“I need to trust whoever’s on that pitch, because otherwise it’s another game gone by where you don’t pick up the points and another game goes by, it’s important.”

Nantwich provided the opportunity for fringe players to prove themselves, but whilst there has been interest from a number of clubs, they have been quickly turned down.

“We’ve had interest,” Ardley confirmed. “We’ve had people ring up for loans, and we’ve put them to the players.

“It’s not been about our financial recouping so to speak, we put it to the players.

“The response we’ve heard is ’I’m too good for that level’ or ‘I don’t want to go and play there’.

“The hard part is, we’re looking at whether we can bolster the squad. With where we are in the league and the quality of all the teams in and around the league, I feel like we need to be.”

Ardley has been vocal in his struggles with the transfer market over the last few months, with the exceptions of Hull City midfielder Olly Green and Huddersfield Town defender Luke Daley.

City also welcomed back Harrogate Town centre-back Will Smith for a second spell at the club this week, but Ardley is hopeful of bringing in more players in the new year.

“In some areas, we need to raise our levels and add one or two fresh faces in January,” he admitted.

“Good quality will I think raise the bar – that’s what we need to do.

“If we just say ‘we’ll go through with what we’ve got now’, even though we've picked up our form in terms of points per game, we could be in the dog fight, and we don’t want to be.

“Sometimes you have to get those players in, and then players who aren’t getting game time might go ‘I want to play’. You hope that they do, and you take them on loan.”

Finlay Barnes and Cedric Main, summer recruits from Leiston and Blyth Spartans respectively, have spent the first half of the season on loan in the Vanarama National League North, from which they have the option of a recall in January.

Both could force their way back into the squad after impressive stints away as the City boss looks to drive home high standards, both on and off the pitch.

“In January, we’ve got Fin Barnes, we’ve got Cedric Main, players who we can call back.

“It’s the first opportunity that we would have to call them back, so do we look at them over the first couple of months of the new year and see if they can force their way in?

“It’s a tough challenge on top of everything else we’ve got going on.

“There’s nothing anyone can do about the weather, but the training pitches are flooded, we’ve got loads of different bits and bobs going on.

“York St John’s University have been brilliant with us and we’ve trained there, but we get one pitch. You might have 28 players on one pitch, and you’ve got other players who need to do work. It’s hard to use that pitch-wise.

“It’s never ideal, which is why I think eventually when we can get everything how we need to going forward – which might not happen anytime soon – but you work with a 22, 24 man squad and you make the competition for places hot and drive the standards.

“With that, you get a better all-around product.”