STEVE Burr has warned in-form FC Halifax Town that the Blues will be out to ‘prove a point’ on Saturday afternoon at the Swansway Chester Stadium (3pm).

Fax have started the season with three straight wins and bookmakers rate Neil Aspin’s side as serious title contenders.

Chester, on the other hand, went through the full range of emotions in the opening week: despair after the Barnet disaster, hope on the back of an encouraging show at Forest Green and glee at beating Braintree Town.

Burr explained that result had given the squad a huge lift and there had been a renewed confidence evident in training this week.

“That comes with winning matches,” said the manager.

“I think our performance at Forest Green was encouraging and then we built on that at Braintree, which was very pleasing.

“The players will want to go out and prove a point on Saturday because of what happened in the first game.”

Burr fears Kingsley James and John Rooney will miss the Halifax game and with Danny Harrison still banned, that leaves him short in midfield.

“John is looking very doubtful with a shoulder injury and Kingsley has a bang on the ankle,” said Burr.

“Michael Kay has come through training this week so that’s a plus but it will be a big blow to be missing John and Kingsley.”

Chester took 45 minutes to get going in Essex, but Burr felt the excellent second half performance showed what the team can do.

He has warned his team to get out of the habit of starting slow, because not all opponents will be as wasteful as Braintree, who should have been two or three up at half-time.

“We’ve got a good honest set of lads but we need to be at full tilt for every single game,” he said.

“We just cannot afford and we’ve not got the type of squad to carry players or the stars in the team that can get maybe others through.

“We’ve got some good individual players but they need to work their socks off.”

Halifax and the Blues came up from the Conference North together, but the West Yorkshire club adapted far better.

Aspin guided them to a fifth-place finish before losing out to Cambridge United in the play-offs.

Ex-Leeds and Port Vale defender Aspin has been in charge since 2009 and his knack for spotting and developing talent has been intrinsic to his success.

Dan Gardner and Lee Gregory have been sold on for significant sums to Chesterfield and Millwall, allowing Aspin to reinvest the profits and strengthen his squad with seven new signings this summer.

Burr is no stranger to that model, selling on the likes of Jamille Matt and Joe Lolley when at Kidderminster Harriers, and he believes Chester need to do the same.

“It’s definitely the formula for us, because without that we are going to find it a struggle to go anywhere,” said the 54-year-old.

“It’s a struggle now because we could go out and bring players in, but we can’t because of the budget and we’ve got what we’ve got.

“You compare the gates at Halifax to ours and people will think that we should be competing with them but that’s the difference it can make.

“It’s quite similar to what I did at Kidderminster, bringing lads through and selling them on.

“You don’t ever want to lose your best players because they’re what makes you strong but it’s what you’ve got do and then strengthen from that.”