FORMER York City favourite Jon McCarthy is backing the likes of Jon Parkin, Sean Newton and Dan Parslow to keep his old club out of National League trouble.

 

The Minstermen climbed out of the relegation zone for the first time since mid-November following a 2-0 triumph over McCarthy’s Chester team at the weekend.

 

But McCarthy has reasoned that the current City side is a much different proposition to the one Chester drew 1-1 with during Gary Mills’ first league game back in charge at Bootham Crescent six months ago.

 

On the latest meeting between the two teams, McCarthy said: “It wasn’t a good performance from our lads and that was unlike us in terms of how the squad of players have performed for the football club over the course of this season.

 

“But we were against a strong, experienced York team who, I think, everybody knows, with their form over the last 20 games, are a completely different challenge to that suggested by their league position. They’ve been slowly working their way out of trouble and it’s a different set of players to those we played against in October and a completely new squad.

 

“They’ve had two squads of players this season and have now got established players in this league like Jon Parkin, Sean Newton and Dan Parslow, who have also played at higher levels. They’re really good players at this standard and they’ve been able to bring them in to work with a good manager and coaching staff.

 

“If you can make those changes, it’s going to help at some point and they got them in early enough to make a difference, so it’s no surprise to see them playing like they are now and the only surprise maybe is that it’s taken them this long to get out of the bottom four.”

 

McCarthy is now tipping City to claim their fourth win from five fixtures when they travel on Good Friday to a Solihull Moors team who he believes, following a 9-0 trouncing at Tranmere, are now feeling the effects of the departures of key performers like top-scorer Akwasi Asante and highly-rated midfielder Jamie Osborne after they followed manager Marcus Bignot to Grimsby in January, although the latter was surprisingly sacked from his Blundell Park position yesterday.

 

“Solihull have had quite a few changes and lost some good players,” the former Northern Ireland international explained. “They’re going through a really difficult patch and I know their current form after watching them against some of our recent opponents.

 

“They’ve been struggling of late and are in a poor place. York will be going there with a lot of form and will be looking to pick up the six points I know they wanted from their two away games.”

 

Despite the frustration of an eighth defeat from a win-less run of nine home games, McCarthy was also generous enough to admit he wants his old team to prevail in their battle against the drop and to follow that up with success in the FA Trophy final at Wembley, having been a member of the 1993 play-off winning team, who were the Minstermen’s first to run out on the hallowed turf.

 

“I have good ties with York and, as disappointed as I was with our performance, once everything settles, we will be delighted if they are still in the division next season and hope they enjoy their Wembley trip as well,” the Deva Stadium supremo added.

 

McCarthy does, however, take great relief from and professional pride in his side’s seemingly safe placing of 14th in the table – seven points clear of the bottom four.

 

“We’ve been in a position where you’re in trouble at the bottom of the league and know how stressful and difficult that is,” he pointed out. “We got out of it last season and know what the other teams are going through at the moment so I think we have to look back and say, actually, we don’t have to deal with that this season, which is a massive credit to everybody at our club.”