The Silkmen concluded their 25/26 pre-season with a narrow 3-2 defeat at home to Manchester City’s U21s on Saturday afternoon.
Derby County, previously intended to be Macc’s final opponents ahead of their debut in the Enterprise National League North, were replaced by a young City side due to a fixture clash earlier in the week.
Just one trialist featured in the Silkmen squad poised to take on the City as John Rooney’s squad continues to take shape as the new season fast approaches.
The visitors took an early lead just inside the fifteen-minute mark through Justin Oboavwoduo, whose deflected effort found its way through a crowd of bodies in the area and beyond a wrong-footed Max Dearnley.
Following a spell of City possession-based domination, Oboavwoduo almost doubled his & the visitors’ lead, placing wide when confronted by Dearnley, one-on-one.
City did make it two not long after via Reigan Heskey, who broke through the Macc back line before calmly slotting past Dearnley after 24 minutes.
Both sides took the opportunity to take on fluids just before the 30 minute mark after two crunching challenges from Brandon Lee and Rollin Menayese left City’s Ezra Carrington seemingly winded and requiring attention from the physio.
Dearnley denied City a third before the break as Mahamadou Sangare forced a reaction save from the Silkmen shot stopper, who managed to palm away the front man’s effort from close range.
City had control at the interval, though Macc were managing to remain within reach of the well drilled opposition.
The young blues continued to frustrate the Silkmen after the break, though weren’t able to extend their lead further.
The home side had a healthy spell of possession and their fair share of chances, though they weren’t able to make it count.
Despite promising signs from the Silkmen, City’s Sangare applied heavy pressure, nipped in to regain possession, took the ball round Dearnley and fired in to an empty net to make it three on 65 minutes.
Macc were keen to cut the deficit and did just that minutes later as Luke Duffy smartly converted direct from a free kick, bending his effort round the wall and in to the far bottom corner.
Four Silkmen changes soon followed, with Lewis Fensome, Isaac Buckley-Ricketts, Regan Griffiths and a trialist replacing Jo Yarney, Paul Dawson, Sean Etaluku and Danny Elliott.
Max Dearnley acrobatically prevented Sangare from grabbing a second and reinstating City’s three goal lead, tipping over the volleyed first time effort from point blank range.
City sub Stephen Mfuni also came close to adding a fourth, firing low and hard beyond Dearnley’s far post.
After an onslaught of City pressure, D’Mani Mellor reduced the visitors lead to just one on 77 minutes, poking beyond goalie Spike Brits with a first time effort at full stretch from the edge of the area.
Silkmen’s first scorer Duffy almost got a third in the closing stages with a half volley which fell nicely for him, but sliced just over from a tight angle.
Isaac Buckley-Ricketts was also prevented an equaliser by Brits at the death, parrying away the winger’s powerful effort at his near post.
Although having pushed for a late leveller backed by 967 supporters creating the atmosphere of a league game, the Silkmen signed off pre-season with a narrow loss at the hands of the Premier League giants.
Luke Matheson was awarded Man of the Match on his full debut for the Club after signing for the Silkmen last week.
