Chester FC chief executive Mark Maguire has urged everyone at the club to stick together in an effort to pull off what he believes now has to be a ‘great escape’.

The Blues are eight points adrift of safety going into Saturday’s home clash with Hartlepool United (3pm) after suffering back-to-back defeats.

The losses to Guiseley and FC Halifax Town were met with fierce criticism from a long-suffering fan base that has seen their side lose 27 of the 45 league matches they have played in 2017.

And Maguire said: “After the wins over Solihull and Fylde I thought we were making progress and we were going to put a run of results together so the Halifax game and the first 20 minutes of Monday’s game came as a shock to the system.

“Fans of the football club have got the right to be happy, angry, frustrated or upset. They spend their hard-earned money and I can understand why they felt like they did after the Guiseley and Halifax games.

“But I also have to remove myself from that and also think about what we can do about it. We are looking at a very tough situation. It’s effectively a great escape. So how do we achieve a great escape?

Chester FC manager Marcus Bignot

“I’ve got to make sure the manager is doing his bit, I’ve got make sure the players are doing their bit, and I’ve got to ask the fans time and again to do their bit, because anything opposite of that doesn’t achieve anything.

“That doesn’t take away their right to be frustrated but I have to try and create something where I look players in the eyes and say, ‘what are you going to do about it?’ I’d do the same with the manager and I ask the same of the fans.

“The only way to get that great escape is as a collective. We need everybody to galvanise themselves in one direction. If the club is fragmented at this point, with 20 games to go, we may as well give up and go home, and I’m damned if I’m doing that.”

Plans for relegation?

Chester will need to take 29 points from their final 21 matches of the season to reach the 50-point mark managers target to stay up.

So, when asked whether plans are in place in the case the club are relegated, Maguire said: “My job is to be strategic in everything we do. I’ve got to know what the consequences are if the worst happens and to some extent that may dictate what we do in the next few months as well. We’ve got to have a really open, honest, strong discussion about this situation.

“But we’re working at this moment in time to do everything we can to stay in this division. That’s the mandate for Marcus (Bignot) on the football side and the mandate for me on the off-the-field side.

“Nobody wants to hear that this or that is in the pipeline, but I’m striving to give the manager more resources so he can do more on the football side.

“But it’s a damn sight easier if you win football matches. It’s really tough when you go through a couple of results like we’ve just been through.

“But I can’t let that deflect from the job I have to do. Part of that job is the commercial side, another part is pulling everyone together to make sure we’re doing the right things football wise.

Chester FC have lost 27 of their 45 league matches in 2017

“But at the moment I’m failing because we’re at the wrong end of the table, and not winning football matches, and struggling to compete.

“But there are 20 games of the season to go and I’ve been in worse situations than this. When I was at Stockport, and I was responsible for the appointment of the manager, we were seven points adrift at the bottom of League Two at the end of January and we stayed up on the last day of the season.

“This is by no means an impossible task but it’s going to take everybody working in the same direction.”