DAVID WEBB has declared that he will protect his York City players from any takeover conversations and will not let the ownership row impact performances on the pitch.

The York City Supporters’ Trust provided Glen Henderson with an acceptance notice on Thursday, formally accepting the chairman’s offer to sell his 51 per cent shareholding back to the fans group.

Henderson, who has not responded to the Trust’s announcement, has since claimed to have rescinded his offer to sell his shares.

The Trust’s statement also revealed that they had been approached by six different parties interested in taking over the club before a deadline of April 4.

While the off-the-pitch issues continue, York have undergone a mixed start under manager Webb, who has been on the touchline for a 3-0 defeat and a 2-2 draw against Gateshead in the past fortnight.

“With what is going on above, I try and concentrate fully on the team,” Webb said on the boardroom drama.

“I have spoken to the players about this as well and we are all professional.

“I’ve got to put a blanket over them as protection just to make sure we are concentrating on performance.

“The fans will obviously do what it is they need to do, that is not in our control. From our perspective we just want to put out a good performance and hopefully they can get behind us.

“I have been in the football industry for over 20 years so I have seen loads of these scenarios before.

“I have been in high-level Premier League clubs so the politics behind the scenes you learn to ignore.”

Webb will be desperate for a first victory on the touchline, after the manager missed City’s 2-0 triumph over a high-flying Woking side and a 5-0 thumping over Blyth Spartans in the Isuzu FA Trophy, due to illness. Both matches were under the tutelage of assistant manager Michael Morton.

The 16th-placed Minstermen have won just one of their last 12 Vanarama National League and only managed one point in their two festive meetings with relegation-battling Gateshead.

However, Webb was eager to point out that York are only two wins away from the top seven.

“We want to try to get ourselves accelerating a little bit, we’ve got the squad and some good players to do that, and it can go either way,” he insisted.

“We’re six points off the play-offs and (we only need) a couple of other results to drop the other way. From our perspective and as a team we want to move up.”

Maidstone United are Saturday's visitors to the LNER Community Stadium (3pm). The Stones, who have won just two of their last 21 league matches, sit in a lowly 22nd, only inside the relegation zone on goal difference.

“It’s a massive game, we want to put a run of results together, so this week is a big game,” Webb added.

“Maidstone are a few places below us in the league so we’ve been analysing their strengths and weaknesses all week and we’re going to attack the game and hopefully get a positive result for the fans.

“(Three points) would be huge. It would be huge first and foremost for the players because they’ve been working really hard in training and obviously we want to give something to the fans as well, a result and a performance.”