Chester FC manager Jon McCarthy is targeting another good run of form to see his side into a strong position come December.
The Blues had their nine-match unbeaten run in the National League ended on Saturday as they went down to a strong Lincoln City side 5-2 at the Lookers Vauxhall Stadium .
Chester's form over September and October has seen expectations raised at the Blues and they remain firmly in the play-off hunt despite Saturday's defeat.
But McCarthy insists that it is a case of safety first for the Blues but is keen for them to continue to reach the standards set over the past two months.
Said the Chester boss: "We target a group of games. We have got Tranmere then we have got a group of games where people expect us to pick up some points from. But we have already seen that and we will map that out and we'll set a realistic and achievable target for us to get to.
"If we start to get towards 35, dare I say 40 points going into December we're in a very healthy position going into Christmas with our first view of being achieving safety."
With their FA Cup interest ending following last month's fourth qualifying round defeat at Southport, Chester are without a league game until November 12 when they make the short trip to Tranmere Rovers.
Rovers, too, are also without a game on Saturday after being knocked out of the cup by Barrow, and McCarthy is ensuring his players are razor sharp ahead of the trip to Prenton Park.
"We have a practice match against Morecambe on Monday and we can get a lot of players out," said McCarthy.
"Then we'll do a lot of match preparation for Tranmere, so we know exactly how we are going to do that and we just need to put the detail to it."
