YORK City's midweek 5-0 win over Pickering Town has given Steve Watson and Micky Cummins food for thought, especially with Joe Tait doubtful for Saturday.

Tait was brought off for Harry Spratt at half-time in last Saturday's 1-0 defeat at Curzon Ashton, having visibly struggled with a hamstring injury.

Speaking on Thursday, assistant manager Cummins said the right-sided centre-back had not fully recovered.

Meanwhile, the 19-year-old Spratt was back in action on Tuesday, helping a young City side to a 5-0 win over North Yorkshire neighbours Pickering Town.

After the match, Cummins said neither he nor fellow incomers to the side had harmed their chances of selection for tomorrow's FA Trophy tie against Altrincham.

Spratt was one of nine changes to the side that lost at Curzon Ashton last week, keeping a clean sheet in a refreshed backline featuring Josh King, Charlie Jebson-King and Nathan Dyer. The bench was composed entirely of Academy players, of whom Archie Whitfield, Will Jackson and Reiss Harrison got time on the pitch in the minutes-gathering outing.

Of the game, Cummins said: "It was good for the purpose of the exercise. We played a different shape with three up top. Macaulay looked bright and it was nice to see Dan Maguire get some more minutes into him after picking up a little injury last week.

"It's good to get minutes into them. They approached it professionally and in the right way, and they had good spells.

"We're going to be forced into (a change for Saturday). It looks like Joe Tait is doubtful for the weekend, he's struggling with his hamstring.

"The two centre-halves, Spratty and Kingy, did really well and Nathan scored a good goal from a right-back position.

"We've got things in our mind and we've got players in our mind."

Since their 1-0 FA Cup win at Bootham Crescent, Alty have notched eight goals in two games, beating Hereford 5-1 and Gateshead 3-0 as they stretched their unbeaten run to nine games. Striker Jordan Hulme bagged four of those goals, making up for having failed to find the net since mid-September.

With such a recent record behind them, Cummins is not anticipating they will change much.

He said: "They have got a good squad with a way of playing. They had a good win midweek against Gateshead and they've got good players in there.

"They've put a nice run together. They're having their spell.

"We need to get back to ours, press the reset button and go again, get back to what we're good at.

"They've got a couple of bodies they can change.

"Jordan Hulme scored a couple the other night.

"They probably won't change much because when you're doing well, you want to keep that momentum.

"We know what to expect from them."

By mutual agreement from both sides, this third qualifying round tie will, if level at 90 minutes, go straight to extra time and penalties.

"They travel to Portsmouth and the last thing they want is a backlog of fixtures," Cummins explained.

"It was probably the sensible thing for both parties.

"We have got the Hereford game midweek, which is a long journey for us on a Tuesday. To have to squeeze a game in would have been difficult."