Former York City midfielder James Berrett returns on trial

The Halifax-born 29-year-old is currently a free agent having parted company with League Two Grimsby at the end of last season.

He joined the Mariners in the summer of 2016, having netted five goals in 40 outings during the Minstermen’s last Football League campaign.

A former Republic of Ireland under-21 international, Berrett has played in the Football League during his entire career, scoring 41 times during 368 appearances, including other spells at Huddersfield, Carlisle and Yeovil.

He played 34 games last term for the Blundell Park outfit and hit the target once, with City chief Martin Gray admitting that he might be looking to add one more body in midfield.

Commenting on Berrett’s situation, Gray said: “He’s available to have a look at.

“That’s all at the moment because he’s only trained with us for one day, so we’ll see how he goes next week as well. He’s got good quality and experience and is a good age and, potentially, we might need one more in midfield.

“We can double up across the defence with Josh Law, Dan Parslow, Tom Allan and David Ferguson all able to come in. We’ve also got four players for two spots up front and, with Adriano Moke and Macaulay Langstaff capable of playing out of wide, we have cover there too.

“We just might need that one more in the centre of midfield to keep pushing the others if the right one comes along.”

Simon Heslop could be in contention, meanwhile, for Saturday’s home match with Alfreton despite being substituted early in Tuesday night’s 1-0 victory over Stockport due to a rib problem.

With his replacement Adriano Moke impressing, though, Heslop might need to wait to reclaim his midfield berth, as Gray reasoned: “Moke has got the shirt at this moment in time and he’s got to put that same standard of performance in every week because, if he does, he can make a big difference to your team.”

After fellow subs Macaulay Langstaff and Jon Parkin also made their presence felt from the bench, with the former setting up Wes York’s winning goal and the latter hitting the post late on, Gray added that he was pleased with his selection options in attack too.

“The two forwards came on and carried on what the other two had been doing when they came off,” the City boss reasoned.

“It was like for like and, when Jon comes on, the noise from the crowd rises a bit. I felt that on Tuesday and he gives you a presence.”

While delighted with the three midweek points, Gray has not allowed anybody to bask in the joys of that result ahead of this weekend’s contest against Alfreton, warning of the next visitors’ capacity to win games at sixth-tier level under former Halifax and North Ferriby manager Billy Heath.

“It was important to enjoy the Stockport win, because It was a great evening for football and the result we all needed,” Gray pointed out. “The feeling created from the crowd was amazing but, after Tuesday night, we moved on straight away to concentrate on Alfreton.

“Everybody came to the party against Stockport and we had to against a strong team, but we won a game that we needed to and, now, it’s back to business, because we’ve got another really tough test against a side with a different style. We all know how Billy works and he has been successful with it.

“He grinds results out and you don’t want to play against his teams every week, but he’s effective and you have to match his team’s physical presence. He takes the majority of the same players with him wherever he goes, and Tom Denton is a massive target for them.

“We’ll have to deal with that and they’ve got some good players who cannot be under-estimated. They can turn anybody over and we will need to have the same mindset we had against Stockport.”