TIMOTHEE Dieng has pushed his claims for a City return at MK Dons on Saturday.

The Frenchman played 45 minutes in a closed-doors friendly against Manchester United under-23s yesterday afternoon – his first involvement since tearing his calf six weeks ago.

Stuart McCall will assess him when the squad train again tomorrow but is hopeful the midfielder could boost a squad still missing the sidelined Shay McCartan.

McCall said: “We will see how Tim goes but he could be in contention for the weekend if there are no ill effects.

“His calf tightened up last week but it was just a bit of fatigue because he’d worked that hard. He hadn’t done any damage to it.

“He had a hard session with Shorty (fitness coach Chris Short) on Saturday, trained Monday and then got 45 minutes in the game.

“We played Tim in the middle of the back three and he came through really well. He looked comfortable and we’ll see how he reacts in training.”

Dieng began the season brightly but has not played since the Valley Parade defeat to Blackburn on August 19.

Some of City’s fringe players got the chance of a full game at United’s Carrington training ground.

It finished 1-1 with Luke Hendrie, who was on United’s books as a youngster, scoring City’s equaliser after good build-up play from Jordan Gibson. Youth team keeper George Sykes-Kenworthy also saved a penalty.

McCartan is expected to be out for at least another week to ten days, which meant he could not join up with the Northern Ireland squad for tomorrow night’s World Cup clash in Germany.

Meanwhile, McCall has challenged his players to enjoy another strong month after winning five of their seven September games.

He said: “We’ve had a strong September but those games have gone now. We were happy with what’s happened but it’s all about the next game at MK Dons.”