DIPO AKINYEMI could return to the York City squad for the visit of Ebbsfleet United on Saturday (3pm).

Ebbsfleet visit the LNER Community Stadium for York’s final match before Christmas, with Neal Ardley confirming both positive and negative team news heading into the clash.

Akinyemi looks set to return to the bench, should he react to Thursday’s training session well, with Adam Crookes also back in training.

It’s bleaker news for Callum Harriott, who could be sidelined for the long-term after suffering a grade two hamstring injury in last Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Rochdale.

“Dipo has trained today, the first real day he had to a part-session on Tuesday, but he trained today,” Ardley told BBC Radio York.

“Is Dipo available to start the game? No. Could Dipo be available for 20 minutes? Let’s see how he reacts today.

“Crookesy is back training and has obviously missed a fair chunk with injury and then re-injury, so it’s just a case of getting his loads up.

“Being a centre-half you would think that once he gets his loads up then he should be able to cope, should he be needed.

“I don’t think it’s great [for Callum Harriott], it’s a grade two hamstring.

“It’s a strange one because the last injury that Callum Harriott came back from was his hamstring and it was probably a three-and-a-half to four-week injury that we took for six to seven weeks, making sure.

“We did all of the testing and we did all of the strength. We didn’t want him to get re-injured.

“We took our time, built his load up so he could play 60 minutes, we then gave him his first 60 and built the load up so he could go to 70, and his hamstring has gone.

“For us, we’ve done everything by the book and it’s very difficult when this happens.

“We’ve tested his strength and tested everything. He has had problems in the past and they have come to light again.

“Levi [Andoh] still has problems with his back where he had the fracture.

“There isn’t a lot of information around there as the back is always a difficult one. There’s not a lot you can do with rehab work and you’ve got a lot of soreness around the back area.

“We’ve got to get that settled down before we can start progressing him. Every time we have tried to step him back up, it’s kind of flared up again. It’s a difficult one for him.”

Ardley also touched upon the decision to drop Tyler Cordner to the bench, with data being a major driving force behind the choice.

“I don’t question Tyler’s work ethic in training. I’ve said before that Tyler Cordner is a wonderfully gifted centre-half.

“He’s got composure and his calmness on the ball is above this level. We need to tone in on him seeing the danger, reacting, talking and the communication, all the bits you need from a centre-half and from a leader.

“When balls come in your box with the defensive duels and all of this sort of stuff, that’s the bit that we want to make sure he is going in the right direction.

“With Crookesy and the other two centre-halves, I feel like we’re all getting them up to speed and strong, now we need to almost make them challenge each other for the positions to get a place in the team.

“That’s what you want, though, competition for places.

“I’d say that Tyler is having a go. One thing that we’re privy to now massively is stats and data.

“There’s no hiding for any players, and this isn’t aimed at Tyler at all, it’s aimed at all players.

“We’ve got live data to see work rate, if it’s dynamic work rate, sprint difference if they are a centre-forward, this kind of stuff.

“We’ve got all of this data that helps us and certainly helps me.”