Dan Maguire to travel with York City squad for top of the table clash at King's Lynn

Maguire has been plagued by injuries since his summer move to York from Blyth Spartans, having been marked by manager Steve Watson as the man to lead City's frontline for this campaign.

He has been restricted him to just seven appearances for the club, none of which have come since the turn of the new year.

However, the Newcastle-born forward has taken part in all of York's training sessions this week, Watson stated, and will make the trip to Norfolk for Saturday's pivotal game.

“Dan’s good, he’s trained all week and he’ll be going down there with us on Saturday," said the manager.

“That’s as positive as we can be about that at the moment.

“They’ll be a decent sized squad going down there.

"There’s a decent number of lads who have made good impressions this week as well as the lads who played well on Saturday.

“We’ll be going there with good attacking options," Watson added on the Minstermen squad which reports a clean bill of health aside from Maguire.

“I’d consider starting Dan, but obviously I’m not going to say what I’m going to do.

“I very much doubt that he’s got anywhere near 90 minutes in him, but we’ll make that decision.

"Me and Micky (Cummins, assistant manager) have got a good idea in our heads about the way that we're going to go."

Back in September's Vanarama National League North reverse fixture, York beat King's Lynn 3-0 at Bootham Crescent, despite conceding much of the possession to the visitors, though never looking in any real danger of losing the game by its latter stages.

“You never know how a game is going to pan out," continued Watson.

“You never know what the weather is going to be like, how the pitch is going to play, whether they will play in a different way.

“But, we’re sure of the way that we’re going to go about it.

“It’s up to myself and the lads on the day to be good enough to be better than them.”

Promoted from the Southern League premier division central play-offs last term, King’s Lynn’s rise to the summit of the division has taken most observers by surprise.

Watson added: “They’ve carried a lot of momentum from the season before. They’ve got some very good footballers.

“They’ve got a striker (Adam Marriott) who has arguably got them double figures worth of points on his own.

“They play a good brand of football and Ian (Culverhouse, manager) has done really well with them. They’re a good team.

“And every now and then, you get teams like that.

“They were a bit of an unknown quantity coming into this league.

“Despite what gets mentioned about the differences between the two clubs, ultimately we’re both in the same league and we’re both the top two teams as we stand at the moment.

“We’re going to go head to head and the best team will win on Saturday.

“It’s got all the makings of a very good match.”

The match has been described by local media in King’s Lynn as the club’s biggest league game in a number of decades.

While there’s obvious pressure on York as the bookies’ pre-season promotion favourites, how the hosts cope with the magnitude of the occasion at The Walks also seems pertinent.

“Certainly by the way that the press has gone this week, the pressure has tried to be put on us,” said Watson.

“Ultimately, I’ll accept that because we’re a big club.

“But, they’re the in-form team in the league at the moment, they’re top of the league and they’re the one that everybody needs to chase.

“So, there’s pressure on both sides.”