DANIEL Nti is expected to make his York City debut against Macclesfield tomorrow night, but might need to start the game on the bench.

The former Worcester City winger, who has scored double figures for the National League South side over the last three seasons, is available after serving a one-match ban during the Minstermen’s opening game of the season – Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Maidstone.

City chief Jackie McNamara has confirmed that Nti will be in his 16-man squad as the home side prepare for their first Bootham Crescent fixture of the new campaign, but he might be introduced when away legs are tiring.

Of Nti’s assets, McNamara said: “With his pace, he’s more direct than anybody who was in the team at Maidstone and can give us that from the middle of the pitch to the front, so we will have to decide whether we start him or bring him on when the game gets stretched. If the game is anything like Saturday, it would have been hard to get him on the ball for the first hour, but the match would have been ideal for him to come on then, because there were gaps that he could exploit.”

Striker Scott Fenwick, meanwhile, will be assessed before the match after turning his ankle at the weekend.

“He did it after ten minutes at Maidstone and only told us afterwards,” the City manager explained. “He has missed training but, hopefully, he should be OK.”

Reece Thompson (stomach), Danny Galbriath (heel), Lanre Oyebanjo (calf), Ben Barber (hamstring) and Franklyn Clarke (suspended) remain unavailable, but Shaun Rooney has been cleared to play after limping out of Saturday’s game late on.

Thirty-something centre-backs George Pilkington and John McCombe, who was released from Bootham Crescent last term having failed to feature during the first three-months of McNamara’s reign, both started Macclesfield’s 2-0 triumph over Torquay at the weekend and the City chief reckons the Cheshire outfit could be vulnerable at the back.

“Looking at the footage, Macclesfield scored two good goals at the weekend and they will be confident,” McNamara reasoned. “They play 4-3-3 and like to pass the ball, so we will need to do that better than we did on Saturday and move it quicker.

“They have good movement up front and their three forwards play quite narrow but, if we can stay solid, I feel we can cause them problems at the other end and the pitch here is a lot bigger than Maidstone’s was on Saturday. I want us to try and get in positions where we can hurt their back four and exploit the spaces between their full backs and centre halves.

McNamara is poised to keep faith with the wing-back line-up he kicked off the campaign with in Kent, but also suggested he will adopt a horses-for-courses approach to tactics during 2016/17, adding: “Saturday’s system is one we can still use against Macclesfield if we play it properly, but we can change to 4-4-2, 3-5-2 or 4-3-3 as well.

“We can switch formation from game to game, so we have whatever we believe will give us the best way to beat the opposition in terms of how they set up - that’s why I went for an aerial advantage at Maidstone.”