JAMIE RAINFORD is determined to make his presence felt for the Blues between now and the end of the campaign.
The 23-year-old Chester striker has recently returned to the club after an impressive loan spell at Conference North side FC Halifax Town that featured five goals in seven league and cup appearances.
The Liverpool-born forward joined Chester for a record-breaking fee from Marine in pre-season and believes he remains in contention to head the end of season list of leading Blues goalscoring forwards.
“There has been a lot of banter between the forwards in the squad about who will finish up as the highest goalscorer,” Rainford said.
“As a striker we all want to score as many goals as we can, and I think the lads would have liked to have scored a lot more than they have.
“Matty McNeil is leading the way for the strikers at the minute, but my Halifax goals count, so I’m on seven!
“But I’d expect to score more goals if I’m given games, like we all do, but we’ve all just got to keep it going.”
Rainford, who scored 33 goals for Marine last season, praised the 35-year-old forward McNeil, who has netted nine goals so far this term.
He said: “Matty has been brilliant for us all season, but he’s been playing week in and week out and he always does a great job for the team – not just in attack but defensively as well.
“Simmo (Chris Simm) and Wildey (Michael Wilde) are also quality players, but Matty has held his own so far this season and he’s been brilliant.”
Rainford is refusing to rule out Northwich and Chorley as well as nearest challengers Hednesford Town as Chester focus their sights on a second successive title season, adding: “We’re level on points with Hednesford but we have one game in hand on them.
“We’re keen to get the last two games against Ebbsfleet and Hednesford out of our system and get back on track next weekend in a winnable game at home to Mickleover Sports.
“We’ll be going out and be trying to make a point to people that it’s our league to lose. We’re top of the league and the title is there for us.
“Most people will probably think it’s now a two-horse race between Hednesford and ourselves, but I don’t think you can rule Northwich or Chorley out of the equation.
“Our trip to Chorley on Saturday week is another six-pointer, but if we go there and get a win then that will put them out of the equation.
“But we’ve got 16 games left and if we can finish the season with 16 wins then we know the league title is ours.”
Reflecting on last Saturday’s 2-1 home league defeat against Hednesford, Rainford said: “I was bitterly disappointed about Saturday’s loss. We went into the match looking to take three points but it was just one of those days. I think the conditions on Saturday suited Hednesford more than us.
“We changed the way we approached the game and with us having to go a lot more direct it played right into their strengths.
“It wasn’t ideal, but we tried. If we were still playing after the final whistle it seemed like we would never score.
“The gaffer told us at half time that we had to go out and give it 110 per cent and to be fair everybody dug deep in the second half. But unfortunately we couldn’t make that count.
“I can remember hitting a half-volley from the edge of the box and it ended up with Michael Taylor at right back, so that tells you how bad the weather was.
“We would have liked to have got the ball down and played a lot more but the weather just didn’t let us do that.”