Newcastle go down to York on Mitrovic debut

STEVE McCLAREN thinks £14m new-boy Aleksandar Mitrovic has the “devil in him” to do some damage on the Premier League stage after making his first appearance in a Newcastle United shirt.

“It was good to see Mitrovic playing”.

Steve McClaren has made clear his unhappiness with the pre season schedule overall and this final stretch of preparations is specifically looking a mess.

“But because of the ongoing saga of his transfer he has missed some days”. Hopefully he will play more Saturday.

Ayoze Perez scrambled a late goal for the visitors on his 22nd birthday, but that was as good as it got.

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. There was one cross in the first half from Shane Ferguson and he left the defender on the ground.

Then Reece Thompson, a trialist who had tried to impress Barnsley earlier this summer, did his bit to earn a deal with York when he cut inside from the right before drilling a lovely shot from the edge of the box inside Darlow’s top right corner.

Mitrovic came close to finding the net a couple of times but eventually failed to score his debut goal for the club.

“What we are doing is trying to get a squad going”, said McClaren.

“We only expected one half from him, but he wanted more”.

“I’m like every manager in pre-season, you always have concerns because you never quite know where you’re at”, he added. It has been short but we have ten or 11 days to go and they will be interesting days. Results are not important but performances are. There was little change, however, before the end of the half, with York’s former Hartlepool keeper Scott Flinders hardly tested.

While Newcastle’s side will look markedly different when they face Southampton in just over a week’s time, the defeat will nonetheless come as a blow to McClaren ahead of his first season in charge at St James’ Park.

Newcastle’s teenage goalkeeper Freddie Woodman, meanwhile, has joined League Two side Crawley Town on loan.