Captain George Horan believes maximum points from Chester FC’s next four matches would kill off Guiseley’s championship chances.

While no-one at the Exacta Stadium is ruling the second-placed Lions out of the running – particularly manager Neil Young – Horan reckons they will become ‘disheartened’ if the Blues beat Corby Town, Workington, Vauxhall Motors and Gainsborough Trinity.

Horan said: “The next four games are really important.

“If we can get good results in them the teams below us will start to become really disheartened with the way we keep turning teams over.

“Four wins would take us nicely into the last 10 games of the season.

“Other teams would still have games in hand on us but they’d have a lot to do.”

Guiseley missed the chance to close the gap on table-topping Chester to 11 points on Tuesday when they drew 2-2 at Gloucester City.

Horan was blissfully unaware of the result until his interview with The Chronicle yesterday morning.

The centre-back, one of Chester’s best performers this season, is focused only on what he can affect.

Horan, who will skipper the Blues at Corby on Saturday (3pm), said: “It’s turned out to be a great result for us but to be honest it was still in our hands before then and it is still in our hands now.

“There’s nothing we can do about how they play, we can only keep doing what we’ve been doing week in and week out.”

The Corby clash is followed by another long trip, to Workington on Tuesday (7.45pm) and home games against neighbours Motors and in-form Gainsborough.

The five matches that follow those set of fixtures constitute Chester’s toughest run of the season so far – Harrogate Town (A), Gloucester (H), Gainsborough (A), FC Halifax Town (A) and Colwyn Bay (A).

Blues boss Young wants to strengthen his squad well before then and he has spent the week trying to secure a right-sided midfielder to provide cover and competition for Dave Hankin.

Young is in talks with two Football League clubs – one to bring a player in on loan, the other on a deal until the end of the season – but as of last night he was still waiting to see if his attempts have been successful.

He would like to have a new face in the squad for the encounter with a Corby side he thinks are better than their lowly placing suggests.

“I watched them against Altrincham on Saturday and I don’t know how they didn’t get something out of the game,” said Young, who has freed up funds in his budget by releasing Michael Powell to join Witton Albion.

“They were all over the place for the first 20 minutes, conceded a goal, but once they scored they were a totally different kettle of fish.

“They passed it well and were dangerous in the final third and I saw enough to suggest we’ll have to be on our game on Saturday.”

Young will have a fully fit squad to choose from.