GARY Bowyer is confident City have enough up front to cope after sanctioning a loan move for striker Omari Patrick.

Shay McCartan was back in full training yesterday, although he will not be considered for tomorrow’s clash at Plymouth.

But his return to the mix has convinced Bowyer that there are sufficient attacking numbers, despite Clayton Donaldson’s absence, and it was the right time to allow Patrick to join Wrexham in the National League.

The 23-year-old has signed until January and the City boss insists it will not be a case of “out of sight out of mind” for a player whose league involvement this season has been limited to just two sub appearances.

Bowyer said: “If we didn’t think Shay was going to be with us for the next couple of weeks, we probably wouldn’t have done it.

“But there’s also a case of being right with the lad. Omari’s been terrific in and around the place, he always walks in with a smile, he’s trained well and just needs game time now.

“It’s not a case of us throwing him away. This is a move for him to hopefully get six or seven games under his belt and then we’ll review it.

“Hopefully it brings him on another step further for us.”

Patrick, who started in the Leasing.com Trophy loss to Rochdale last week, said:

“It is a very good team and a very good set-up at Bradford so the competition is very high.

“The team is flying at the moment so sometimes it is how football goes.”

With the Macclesfield trip moved to next Saturday, Bowyer plans a practice match in midweek for McCartan and Matty Palmer.

Jake Reeves may be involved but he is pushing for a place against Plymouth as City revive their League Two promotion push after a three-week delay.

Bowyer added: “Jake’s going the right way again. He will be with us at the weekend and if he doesn’t get on the pitch, then we’ll certainly look to get a game organised for him at the beginning of the week so he can continue his progress.”

City had won four out of five before the enforced break for the cup games. Bowyer hopes they can pick it up again from where they left off against Exeter at the start of the month.

“Because of the length of time it has been, there is the chance you lose sight of what good form we were in,” he said. “We’ve just reminded the players of that.

“It was just that ‘nearly’ performance (against Shrewsbury) on Tuesday distracts a little bit from what we’ve achieved.

“We scored two and kept a clean sheet in our last game in the league. But this is an opportunity to get back into a rhythm.”

Plymouth knocked Forest Green off the League Two summit with a 1-0 away win last week and Bowyer expects Ryan Lowe's side to be serious challengers.

"They will be right up there, for sure.

“You look at what Ryan did last year at Bury under the circumstances and then got himself the move.

“It’s started off well in terms of how they are playing and they will be there at the death – if not in the automatics.”