ADAM HINSHELWOOD explained the changes made to York City in their 3-0 defeat to Altrincham.
After confirming that he would make changes to his side after thrashed Yeovil Town 4-0 on Saturday, Hinshelwood opted to switch four players in his starting eleven for their visit to Altrincham.
Ryan Fallowfield, Ashley Nathaniel-George and Luca Thomas all came into the starting eleven in place of Adam Crookes, Marvin Armstrong and Tyrese Sinclair.
But the biggest surprise was the change of Rory Watson, who was rotated for Harrison Male despite keeping a clean sheet on Saturday.
Hinshelwood explained the changes after being impressed in training, but admitted that he had perhaps been too bold.
He explained: “Them guys had been training really well and we wanted to keep it fresh, freshen it up as it’s going to take a lot out of you with their pitch heavy.
“It’s backfired tonight, if we take a chance inside the first ten minutes then it probably looks like a genius stroke.
“That’s the decisions that you’ve got to make as a manager.
“You don’t always get them right but maybe coming here with Luca Thomas and Ollie Pearce, David Ajiboye and Ashley Nathaniel-George was probably in hindsight a bit bold.
“Maybe it’s a game for some legs in midfield and Marvin Armstrong.
“With that all said and done, in the first 10, 15 minutes we played some really good stuff and got the ball into the final third, but just couldn’t quite capitalise on that.”
Hinshelwood would also go onto explain the decision to switch Male with Watson, as he continued his trend of rotating goalkeepers with City.
“He [Male] probably had a bit of a shaky time at Forest Green so I thought it was important to get that out of his system, which he did with a clean sheet at the weekend.
“It’s something that we have done throughout the season and it has seemed to work well for us.
“Rory’s on the back of two clean sheets in the league himself.
“In training they both push each other really well and we want to keep them both hungry.
“Ultimately, we’ve got to go with a team that are going to get the three points.
“That’s what I thought I selected today, but obviously I got it wrong and way off.
“All we can do is work even harder now and try to respond on Saturday, because if we think that Maidenhead are going to turn up and just give us three points, then we’re very much mistaken.”
Whilst attention will quickly turn towards that National League fixture against Maidenhead United on Saturday at the LNER Community Stadium (3pm), York do have one more fixture in between.
A trip to TIBS awaits City this evening, to be played at Thornaby FC’s Teesdale Park (7.30pm) for the North Riding Senior Cup second round.
Hinshelwood has confirmed that it will be a young team that will represent the club in the tournament, as expected, with the boss keen to rest his first-team players.
“It’ll be pretty much a young side going to play.
“We want to keep everyone fresh, especially after this today.
“It’s a real heavy pitch out there, and the pitches are going to get heavy, so hopefully what will be serving us in good stead is the full use of the squad.
“We don’t want to risk anyone at this sort of stage.”
