ELLIOTT DURRELL insists he was “not bitter” after being released by Wrexham despite never playing under incoming manager Gary Mills.

Mills was appointed Reds boss in April 2015 and immediately set about revamping the squad, with Durrell one of the players who were not offered a new contract.

Durrell, who joined Wrexham on an 18 month deal in January 2014 following a successful spell at Hednesford Town, spent last season at Tamworth before signing for Chester earlier this summer.

The 27-year-old will experience his first cross border derby in Chester colours at The Racecourse on Saturday and he has set his sights on beating his former club.

“Gary Mills wanted to bring in his own players,” said Durrell. “I am sure he has seen little bits of what I have done since I left Wrexham.

“I am not bitter, these things happen in football. It is just a case of making sure we get the result that we want.”

Durrell is looking forward to seeing some familiar faces but insists he is treating the derby like any other game and will be focused on the job in hand come kick-off.

“It’s a game I am looking forward to, going back to my old club,” said Durrell. “It is the first game you look out for when the fixtures come out but I can’t really let things get on me, I have got to approach the game like any other game.

“Of course it will be nice to go back to Wrexham, there are some lovely people at the club and I made some friends there.

“This time I am a Chester player and I will be going with the right frame of mind looking to win the game for Chester.”

Durrell has impressed Blues fans with his workrate and ability to score spectacular goals so far this season and is delighted his club are preparing for Saturday’s derby match on the back of an unbeaten three-game run while Wrexham will focus on the match after a 2-0 defeat at Woking.

He said: “We know how Wrexham will be feeling because we came back from Woking on the end of a bad result.

“So we can look at it in one of two ways. Wrexham will be like a wounded animal or they’ll be looking at setting the record straight like we did in our following game.

“But we can’t control how Wrexham play or what they do in training this week. All we can do is approach the game the same as we approached last Saturday’s match.

“There is no better form than we have shown going three games undefeated heading into this weekend’s derby.

“It’s all about results and we’re building a good bit of momentum up at the minute and we are playing with a bit of belief now which I think we have possibly been missing.

“The performances have certainly been there earlier on in the season, but we committed a few individual mistakes and we’ve managed to cut those out and I think we look a real force now.

“This weekend’s game will take care of itself, but we always take one game at a time because there are things outside of the game that we can’t control. We just look at what we can control and with the momentum that we have built up at the moment sets us in good stead.

“We’ll go into the game full of positivity and full of belief and we’ll be aiming to get the right result.”

Durrell believes Chester’s young players are good enough to deal with Saturday’s derby atmosphere.

He said: “There is always the element of some of our lads not having the experience of a derby match, but I’m a great believer of if you’re good enough you’re old enough.

“I don’t think it makes any difference how old a player is because if you look at some young lads who burst onto the scene at the very top level at 16 or 17 you can see they are good enough and can handle any game.

“We just know that the 11 Chester players on the pitch this Saturday will be ready to take the game by the scruff of the neck and make sure we come back with the points.”

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