YORK City are set to welcome back Jordan Burrow, Kallum Griffiths and Macaulay Langstaff for tomorrow’s pre-season home clash against Bradford City (kick-off 1pm).

Burrow is back following a bee sting, Griffiths has recovered from an ankle problem and Langstaff returns following illness.

Striker Jake Wright is also fit to face the Bantams having limped out of Tuesday night’s 7-1 home defeat to Barnsley at half-time having opened the scoring.

But defender Tom Allan is expected to be out for another fortnight following the knee injury he suffered in the first friendly at Shildon last weekend and fellow defender Dan Parslow will also be sidelined against the Bantams, along with first-year professional Flynn McNaughton.

On the roster for this weekend, City assistant-manager Sean Gregan said: “It’s been a bit frustrating during these first couple of weeks because, when you make new signings, you want to bed them in and, when injuries happen, you can’t do that, but Macaulay is back from illness and Jordan should be OK after getting stung by a bee, which caused his calf to swell up.

“Kallum has also trained for two or three days, so should be involved, but Dan Parslow played with an injury on Tuesday and he might not feature. Tom Allan will be out for a couple of weeks and Flynn has jarred his ankle too, which is unlucky for him.

“He did well last season when he got in the team, so we’ll need to get him fit again as soon as we possibly can.”

Gregan went on to suggest that there could be more game time against League One Bradford for the squad’s senior players than during City’s opening two warm-up games but reasoned that the heavy loss to Barnsley must be treated as a lesson learned by all the players on duty that evening.

“Pre-season is about getting minutes into your legs and, for 35 minutes against Barnsley, we were really good,” Gregan pointed out. “Then, we made a couple of mistakes and, while we had a very inexperienced squad for much of the second half, it was a lesson for all our players - young and old - that if you make mistakes against better opposition, you get punished.

“The result wasn’t what we wanted and, hopefully, it will be a lot better against Bradford with more minutes under everyone’s belt. We’ve been trying to protect players by making sure they don’t play too many minutes and pick up injuries, but we must start thinking about getting more game time into the players who are going to play at Chorley on August 4.”

Gregan added that no decision had yet been made on who will wear the skipper’s armband during 2018/19, saying: “Russ (Penn) was captain on Saturday and Sean (Newton) was the other night and I think the manager is still mulling that one over.”

City will continue to run the rule over the out-of-contract Clovis Kamdjo in tomorrow’s game, although fellow trialist Lee Hulme might not feature.

On his new position as Martin Gray’s full-time number two, Gregan explained: “After Dave (Penney) moved upstairs to oversee everything, Martin needed somebody hands-on to do the day-to-day work with him.

“We worked together for six years at Darlington, so it’s a natural progression. I didn’t really like the phrase defensive coach before, because I came in as a coach.

“That’s what I did at Darlington and what I was doing here towards the end of last season, so my role hasn’t changed much, even if the title has done. It’s better being full-time than part-time, though, because you get to know the players better as characters and they get to know me better.”