Heavily under-fire manager Martin Gray has asked to be judged only after bringing in his “own players” to Bootham Crescent.
The former Darlington chief has come under increasing pressure from understandably angered supporters following a disastrous sequence of four successive defeats almost certainly consigning the club to the sixth-tier again next season.
During that time, York have failed to score a goal in over six hours of action and have now taken just a solitary point from the last fifteen available.
However, Gray, who is already meeting potential new signings for next season, has spoken passionately of his vision for the future, and of the major culture-change required at the club in order to move it forward.
“To go forward as a club, we’ve got to bring in the right people with the same winning mentality – not the best footballers, but the bravest footballers,” he insisted to BBC Radio York.
“We’re meeting players today and working really hard with the board of directors. I’m hoping to make some signings as soon as possible. We’ve got meetings this afternoon with two or three new players.
“I’ve got to reinvent the wheel here,” Gray stressed. “I’ve got a blank sheet of paper. The board has basically told me to ‘go and create the culture you’ve had in the past at Darlington’.
“At this stage last season, we [Darlington] got told with five games to go that we couldn’t make the play-offs. We went and won the last four not knowing we could even go in the play-offs – and finished above Salford.
“That’s the culture and mentality I need to be allowed to bring to this football club. To move it forward, I need that personality, desire and hunger – and judge me on that. That’s the only thing you can do. Judge me when I get my own players in.
“We’ve got to work within a playing budget,” he continued. “I think in the past here it’s just been funded by [former chairman] Jason McGill. That philosophy with an open cheque book can’t continue. It doesn’t work and is not the way to manage a football club.
“We’ve got to get back to a sensible playing budget that is attracting players to come – and pay the right wages for the level they are at.”
Meanwhile, City will be without striker Louis Almond [calf] and on loan Alex Pattison [hamstring] for the weekend arrival of Leamington, although Alex Kempster [hamstring] should have recovered in time.
