YORK City boss Steve Watson intends to audition his favoured 3-5-2 formation in pre-season.

But the ex-Everton and Newcastle defender has also reasoned that he will not be inflexible if the wing-back system does not look the right way forward for the Minstermen during the 2019/20 season.

Watson preferred the line-up as he defied expectations at previous club Gateshead, guiding the north-east International Stadium outfit away from relegation trouble in the National League before building a squad that challenged for the play-offs and promotion to the Football League last term.

The North Shields-born, 45-year-old moved to Bootham Crescent in January during that campaign and, following a 3-1 defeat at eventual National League North champions Stockport County in his first game at the City helm, he experimented with 3-5-2 in his next three matches.

But, when eight goals were shipped during that trio of contests as defeats against Chorley (1-4) and Hereford (1-2) sandwiched a 3-2 victory over Alfreton, Watson reverted back to 4-3-3 and the team only conceded once in their next four fixtures.

City briefly switched back to 3-5-2 for the first 45 minutes of Good Friday’s home clash against Spennymoor before again dispensing with the tactical structure for the final two-and-a-half matches of the campaign and, on his potential set-up for 2019/20, Watson said: “I like to have two strikers on the pitch and the system has worked for me in the past.

“I was honest enough to admit that I didn’t do enough work on it when we tried to play that way last season and, maybe, we didn’t have the right personnel to do it at the time. I’d like to try and nail it down in pre-season but, if it doesn’t look like it will suit us again, then we’ll look at something different.”