Robbie Fowler, Trevor Sinclair and Joey barton were all unavailable for City’s second pre-season warm up game through injury. Shaun Wright-Phillips was a late withdrawal having felt unwell when he arrived at the Moss Rose Ground.
The home side took a shock early lead within three minutes when Jon Parkin slotted the ball past De Vlieger after breaking free between Sylvain Distin and David Sommeil.
The Blues struck back within five minutes when they levelled the scores with a crisply taken finish by trialist Yasser Hussain. The midfielder stroked the ball home from close range after Stephen Ireland’s shot was parried by Fetis.
City could have taken the lead as both Sylvain Distin and Willo Flood had shots saved by the Macclesfield stopper.
A neat one two crisp passing move between Willo Flood and Danny Warrender cracked open the home defence but a last ditch tackle by Kevin Sandwith denied the City defender who had signed a new one year deal last month.
Minutes later Bradley Wright-Phillips missed a great opportunity at the far post just failing to get power behind his header after Willo Flood had got the cross in from the right as City began to dominate.
Just short of the half hour mark City were again denied the lead when Claudio Reyna eight yard shot rebounded off the upright following a corner from the left.
City continued to control the first half with Claudio Reyna hammering in a well struck drive only to see Alan Fetis again deny him and the Blues went in at the break on level terms
Richard Dunne, Stephen Jordan and Danny Mills were among the replacements for the second forty five minutes with Kasper Schmeichel going between the posts in place of Geert De Vlieger.
Lee Croft, playing in an out and out striker’s role casued a few problems with his trickery in the home defence and trialist Hussein continued to impress.
But City failed to create any real goal scoring chances and were rarely tested in defence by the home side.
Teams:
Macclesfield: Fettis, Bailey, Sandwith, Morley, Swailes, Bullock, Harsley, Parkin, Miles, Beresford, McIntyre
City: De Vlieger,(Schmeichel) Warrender,(Mills) Sommeil,(Dunne) Distin,(Richards) Thatcher,(Jordan) Flood,(Bradley Wright-Phillips) Ireland, Reyna,(D’Laryea) Hussain, Bradley Wright-Phillips,(Croft) Bermingham.(Miller).
