After watching Mitrovic come through his first 70 minutes as a Newcastle player at York, McClaren said: “He has not trained for ten days so lacked that final yard here”.
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But completely against the run of play, Newcastle’s youthful back-line were undone as the trialist forced the issue down the right before crossing for Straker, the full-back diverting the bouncing ball over Karl Darlow. When I saw videos of him playing that is what he does.
The Magpies are also understood to have made a fresh attempt to lure Marseille’s £12m-rated forward Florian Thauvin, while there have been claims that AC Milan have turned down an approach for M’baye Niang.
Rolando Aarons – who had to hobble off with an injury in the second half – looked full of objective and he headed against the bar shortly before half-time from Mehdi Abeid’s corner, but York held on to the two-goal cushion for the remainder of the half and McClaren demanded more after the restart.
New signing Aleksandar Mitrovic may have made his Magpies debut, but it was one to forget as the Magpies succumbed to their third pre-season loss in six matches in front of 2,048 travelling supporters – and that despite birthday boy Ayoze Perez grabbing his first goal of pre-season.
“We are more or less there”.
“I’m like every manager in pre-season, you always have concerns because you never quite know where you’re at”, he added.
“That’s what I’m doing, we’re learning a lot but with 10 or 11 days left, they’ll be interesting days”.
“We played good football and had good endeavour and attitude”. There was little change, however, before the end of the half, with York’s former Hartlepool keeper Scott Flinders hardly tested.
McClaren’s side face Borussia Monchengladbach on Saturday before the first top-flight game against Southampton a week on Sunday. Goalkeeping coach Andy Woodman was absent though, and he could well be Crystal Palace-bound.
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YORK CITY: Flinders; McCoy (Swan 66), Lowe (Trialist 66), Winfield (Nolan 66), McCombe (Rzonnnca 66), Straker (Godfrey 66), Berrett (Meikle 66), Summerfield (Ilesanmi 66), Penn (Platt 55), Oliver (Carson 66), Thompson.
