JON McCARTHY has denied the notion this weekend’s double-header is ‘pivotal’ to his future as Chester manager.

The Blues travel to Aldershot Town tomorrow before taking on Cheshire rivals Macclesfield Town on Monday with McCarthy’s side having failed to register a victory in their four outings so far this season.

There was voices of discontent from the Blues’ faithful during last weekend’s 3-2 defeat against Sutton United, with McCarthy involved in verbal exchanges with sections of the main stand, but the 47-year-old says he’s ‘still the right man’ for the job.

“Of course, for yourselves in the media, you want to build this one up, I get that. But it’s not just this weekend for me, each game is pivotal,” said McCarthy, who did the Blues’ next four matches, which include trips to Torquay and Solihull, will be make or break.

“I get the feeling, I get how it will be if things don’t go right this week, but I don’t want to be part of that.

“There’s a run of games after that, Torquay and Solihull, it’s those games that are pivotal to us in terms of hitting our targets for the first 10 games.

“But I’d knock back the idea about this weekend because it builds pressure on our players, and really it’s just a case of the next game which is Aldershot.

“It could be really significant and I fully expect us to have the amount of points on the board after 10 games that I thought we’d have. If we get it right this weekend, we could have a lot more.

“There’s teams in this league, Wrexham, Tranmere, they’ve lost more than us already. There’s a pattern there with my teams about how we have to be.

“We might drawn four or five in a row but then if we back that up with two wins, it’s a good set of results.

“Everyone has played one more than us, that hasn’t been fair, but it brings us together and makes us stronger. If we get that right then everything we’ve done so far becomes the right things.”

McCarthy admitted to a sleepless night following last weekend’s last-gasp defeat to Sutton, which extended the Blues’ winless run at home to 13 games, but quickly turned his attentions to a match up with Gary Waddock’s Shots, who are many people’s tip for promotion.

“I can never rewind back to a game or fast forward to one,” he continued.

“I wake up at 2am after Sutton, feeling rubbish, sick in my stomach that it’s happened to us. But there’s no worse time to worry about things than the middle of the night in the dark.

“Sunday morning, it’s onto Aldershot. Look at what we did well in the last game, what we can do better.

“They’ve lost to Boreham Wood and drawn with Maidstone, so it’s two without a win. They’ve got good players and a very attacking style of play.

“They look to get it to the centre-backs, the full-backs go right on and create all kinds of chaos with movement, but I know how to deal with that and we’ve seen on Saturday that we can play some football ourselves and be a threat.”

McCarthy is likely to be without Ross Hannah (calf), Harry White (muscle strain) and Nyal Bell (facial injury) when the squad travel down to The Recreation Ground, and he admits it’s ‘frustrating’ to be left with just James Akintunde to lead the line.

“We’ll have a look at them on the training pitch,” he added. “James Akintunde is taking on a lot of work, he’s been outstanding.

“It’s frustrating because we’ve brought in better strikers and we can’t get them on the pitch. There’s a lot of common sense there, a good stable base.

“John McCombe had a toe injury, it was inflamed after Sutton. He saw the doctor and he’s available for this weekend. If John McCombe is missing games due to a toe injury then we’d have to find a new nickname for him!”