YORK City manager Neal Ardley has explained the mystery behind Mitch Hancox’s absence from the Minstermen squad, with the midfielder missing out on a chance to start tomorrow night.

With Ardley being without Thierry Latty-Fairweather and Adam Crookes due to injury tomorrow night, the York boss was set to hand Hancox his first start of the season in defence, but illness means that will be unlikely.

Ardley also confirmed that City’s injury problems had gotten worse, with Maziar Kouhyar and Alex Woodyard also now set to be sidelined after picking up knocks in York’s 2-2 draw with Solihull Moors on Saturday.

“When I first spoke to him (Hancox) I asked him his best position, and he said that he was an eight and liked to get forward.

“I had eight central midfielders that had played ahead of him that were match fit, and I looked at them first.

“With our problems we’ve got at left-back and in the left-wing back spot, Mitch possibly could have been involved going into tomorrow’s game, but phoned in this morning sick.

“Not much I can do about that, that may be a missed opportunity.

“If I can help it, and I might not have much of a choice at the moment, I don’t want to put round pegs into square holes.

“You want to try and get the right people in the right positions, but it’s proving difficult at the moment.

“Woody (Woodyard) is going to have an ultrasound, but he’s been rushed a little bit through pre-season.

“With Thierry I can see him being out for a couple of weeks.

“Maz is a doubt, he came off of the bench typically and felt his groin a little bit so he is one that we’re looking at.

“He could be in the squad, but he could be a doubt still so we’re looking at that tomorrow.

“(Dan Batty’s) baby is still in the hospital and is still on oxygen, it’s like a day-by-day thing.

“He came in a trained today, but what we’ve said is that we’ll name the squad with him in it and we’ll add a player or so to the squad, but if something happens then we’ll always put family before football.”

Ardley also confirmed that he is hoping to bring in a new defender due to injuries within the squad, but did provide positive updates on Quevin Castro and Jack Stott.

“We can do with a left-back now, Crookesy is injured, Thierry is injured, if you look at our full-back positions then Ducky is injured and Levi is injured.

“Our only first-team full-back is Ryan Fallowfield.

“In real terms we could do with someone down the left to bring us balance, and that gives us the option to move Crookesy inside as a centre-back and not throwing Thierry in week in week out when we’re trying to develop him and bring him forward as a player.

“Cas (Quevin Castro) is back training with the group, so that’s good news and we can consider him now.

“Jack Stott has only just trained today with the group for the first time, so he’s a little bit behind in that respect.”