DAGENHAM & Redbridge’s individual quality can punish York City on Saturday when the two teams meet, believes manager Adam Hinshelwood.
The York boss is expecting a similarly difficult match against Dagenham on Saturday, when the Daggers make the trip to the LNER Community Stadium (3pm), despite a rather uneventful National League campaign so far.
Dagenham currently find themselves in 16th position on 32 points, seven clear of the relegation zone and ten adrift of the play-offs, which forced a change in management at the end of December.
Ben Strevens’ spell lasted just shy of two years, with Lewis Young announced as his replacement heading into 2025.
“It’s Dagenham at home, it’s a tough game, there’s so many like Boston away where you look at it as a tough game," Hinshelwood detailed.
“They’ve got some real good individuals and I think that’s the same for a lot of teams, especially in that sort of mid pack.
“They’ve got players that on their day can really hurt you.
“We’ve got to learn quickly from the Sutton first-half and Boston second-half, we’ve got to learn from those two halves that in particular, were poor.
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“We’ll try to find more of the Oldham kind of performance, and if we do that then we know that we’ll be in the game for longer.
“The way that we play always creates some chances, so that’s our challenge.”
Hinshelwood spoke on the appointment of Young, who he feels is facing a similar situation to the one he did when he first arrived at York, in assessing the future of the squad and where improvements can be made.
The boss gave his opinion: “It can be a good time, he can come in and learn about the players.
“I’m sure that that’s what’s happening, that was certainly the case of us when we came in, it was good to have 11 games to learn about the squad and what we felt we needed to improve, what we felt we could work with and what players we felt weren’t going to be a part of our plans.
“That was an important time and I’m sure that Dagenham will be looking at it the same.
“There will be players that they have already identified that can come on the journey with them, and players that they are probably not so keen on and are not so sure about.
“I’m sure that those players are doing all that they can to impress as well.”
The highlight of Dagenham’s season so far was undoubtedly their FA Cup run, which saw wins over Leiston in the fourth qualifying round, before victories against higher-division opponents Crewe Alexandra and AFC Wimbledon.
Their journey came to an end in a 3-0 loss at Millwall, a match which Hinshelwood studied and believed that the Daggers will have been frustrated to have not taken their run further.
“I watched their game recently in the FA Cup against Millwall, and it was quite an even affair.
“To be honest, it could have gone either way and they’ll be disappointed that they didn’t take some of their chances on the day.
“That’s them playing against a Championship team, I come into these press conferences and it does keep you honest.
“As a manager, I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that you go into each game with a bit of apprehension, because you’re a bit nervous of how a game can go.
“You know that if you don’t quite defend your box or switch on to the second phase, if you don’t do all of that stuff, then you come unstuck.
“This is definitely one of those games as well, and that’s not being disrespectful, they’ve got some good players in their side as well that will be looking to come and definitely get on the right side of the result.”