The former Wimbledon, Notts County and Solihull Moors manager started life at York bottom of the Conference after Southend United's draw at Halifax Town.

But they quickly came off it with a 2-2 draw at home to Boreham Wood.

They led twice, through Dipo Akinyemi and QUevin Castro, but were twice pegged back by Lee Ndlovu equalisers. Both sides had chances to win it but neither could.

Ardley pointed to the opening quarter of the game as an example of what he is looking for.

"For 25 minutes at the start I think you saw some good and what we'd been working on for two days, then I think you saw a little bit of the mentality when you're not used to winning or being in the lead; towards the end there was a bit of naivety for the goals and our shape for them but I didn't expect it to be perfect on day one," said Ardley.

"But I did think we saw two teams ib brutal conditions having a right good go.

"I would say to the fans that first 25 minutes is what we've tried to do in training and what we're trying to achieve but then we got pined back in and lost our way a bit.

"Even then we kept to our shape.

"Both their goals were poor, one from good play then an opportunity to slide someone in, turn back, go back and end up with the keeper.

"The second goal's not good enough, they go through us too easily."

That opening 25 minutes was capped off when Kai Kennedy released Ryan Fallowfield to pull the ball back for Akinyemi.

"It was a great goal, great movement with some of the rotations we've worked on. At times Fallow (Fallowfield) was our highest player and Kai Kennedy got into pockets and it worked," said Ardley.

"It was similar to our chance late on when we could have won it."

Ardley saw signs of the mental fragility of a team yet to win this season.

"It's natural," he said. "Winning's a habit and here losing's become a habit. That can make players a little bit anxious at times.

"It's a big job to try and turn things around.

"But we kept at them trying to win the game and we weren't scared to lose it.

"All in all a draw's a fair result and the boys have had a good go.

"Fans will see our deficiencies but hopefully they'll think, 'That's a bit more like it.'"

Neal Ardley sees York City's good and bad sides in opening game