SHAUN PEARSON has issued a rallying cry and urged Wrexham to seize their opportunity in the push for a return to the Football League.

Dean Keates’ promotion contenders currenly find themselves fourth in the National League, seven points behind leaders Macclesfield Town but with a game in hand.

This is the club’s 10th season in non-league and with Wrexham established among the pacesetters, inspirational captain Pearson is focused on trying to finish top rather than settle for a place in the play-offs.

“At the start of the season, we would all have snapped your hand off for the play-offs if we are all honest,” said Pearson.

“But now we are in there, we have got an opportunity. We have got to try and churn out wins when we can.”

For the first time this season, teams finishing between second and seventh place in will be involved in the play-offs.

Games will be one-legged, with sides in fourth and fifth hosting the seventh and sixth clubs in a qualifying round.

Clubs that finish second and third will progress straight to a semi-final at home, meaning they will play one match fewer.

Should Wrexham miss out on automatic promotion, Pearson says they must aim for second best and try to finish in the top three to give themselves a better chance in the play-offs.

“There is a bonus finishing second or third this year,” said Pearson. “To have home advantage and get straight through to the semi-finals rather than having to play a quarter-final game will be a massive advantage.

“If we don’t finish top, it is important to try and finish in the top three so you play one less game to try and win promotion which is massively important.”

Wrexham, without a game at the weekend, ended a run of three successive draws by beating Torquay United 4-0 at The Racecourse in their last outing nine days ago.

Although he is setting his sights high, Pearson stressed the importance of Wrexham establishing themselves in the top seven.

“It was important to win just to open that gap up behind us again,” said Pearson.

“We did have a little gap there, obviously in recent weeks that has been closed.

“But beating Torquay just reopened it slightly so if we can get a couple more wins and just open that gap up between us and the teams below us, that would be huge for us moving forward.

“Then you can concentrate purely on the top spot and not have to worry about what is going on behind you.

“That is first and foremost, can we just make sure we cement ourselves in them top places and then after that, if Macclesfield do drop a couple more points and we will pick up a couple of points, we will be there hopefully to take advantage.”

Wrexham had not won in four league games before beating Torquay as the Reds registered their biggest win of the season.

Despite the barren run, Pearson was pleased with recent performances.

“The good thing for us is we have just had a sticky patch and although we have not got the wins we wanted, we have still managed to pick up a couple of points here and there,” added Pearson.

“Hopefully we can now find our form in terms of results because I think the last few performances have probably been as good as we have had all season.

“It has been a strange one because earlier in the season when we maybe didn’t play quite as well, we picked up some wins when maybe other people said we wouldn’t have deserved them.

“I would say we have probably deserved a couple more wins than what we have had in the last four or five games and we have only got one to show for it.

“If we can keep those levels of performances, wins will come. We have no doubt about that, we showed that against Torquay. We can kick on now and keep that going.”