YORK City manager Martin Foyle believes the end of the month will determine whether his side are realistic Blue Square Premier title contenders.

The Minstermen are currently sat third, four points behind leaders Stevenage with a game in hand and one adrift of Oxford having played one match more.

Foyle, though, is waiting to see how his side tackles the next three league fixtures before setting his designs firmly on automatic promotion.

City are away to Ebbsfleet this afternoon, play host to promotion-chasing Luton on Tuesday night and visit play-off hopefuls Mansfield a week later.

In between, the Luton and Mansfield matches, the Minstermen will also travel to Barrow for an FA Trophy quarter-final next Saturday.

About his team’s schedule, Foyle said: “We are looking at the table and it was always in my mind that if we are right up there come the end of the February then, with the fixtures we have got after that, we can have a good go at it.

“We need to get a couple more of our hard run of away games out of the way first, as well as the Luton game and the FA Trophy quarter-final, but, if we are still in the pack on February 27, then we will have a good idea of what we can achieve.”

With Chester having been suspended from league action for seven days and still under the threat of expulsion for a failure to fulfil two consecutive fixtures, Foyle added that he did not feel the removal of their records from the table would affect the top positions.

He said: “It’s not been right at Chester for a number of weeks and it’s a horrible situation. We have beaten them and won three points.

“Stevenage would lose six points if they were kicked out of the league but it wouldn’t affect the top positions as much as the bottom because I think both ourselves and Oxford would get another three points anyway by playing them in their current state.

“I feel sorry for teams like Cambridge lower down the table who will lose six points but Gateshead, who played them when they had some good loan players in, would not lose any because they got beaten by them twice.” In the wake of Chester’s demise, Foyle has also called on the Conference to examine clubs’ financial operations more closely.

He said: “The whole situation needs to be fair for everybody and there needs to be proper rules in place to prevent this happening again. You hear of deals that Histon are offering players and they are way out of our league.

“Matt Tubbs has also signed a two-year contract with Salisbury that we wouldn’t be able to get near and these clubs are meant to have money problems.”

The City boss added that he is now ready to enter contract negotiations with players in his squad, explaining that whatever division the club are playing in next season would make no difference to his retained list.

He said: “We are starting to look at contract situations now because that’s important. I’m not thinking about what division we will be in before I make decisions because we are a Conference club at the moment and, if we got into the league, then these players would deserve a chance.”