That was the message from York manager Adam Hinshelwood ahead of City’s stay down South, with the Minstermen first facing rock bottom Ebbsfleet on Saturday (3pm), before making the trip to top of the table Barnet on Tuesday (7.45pm).
Hinshelwood is keen for York to avoid any complacency against an Ebbsfleet side that have witnessed just one win since September, which has been their only win all campaign.
The City boss believes that the Barnet game will be rendered to ‘nothing’ unless they can pick up the points at Ebbsfleet on Saturday, with Hinshelwood using the example of second-bottom Boston United as a wake-up call to his players.
“The Barnet game means nothing unless we manage to get something on Saturday, so full focus has got to go onto that,” Hinshelwood reiterated.
“Once we get through that, we’ll obviously be together so we can see how everybody is recovered after that.
“We’ll get a good recovery into the players on Sunday, assess where everyone is and then the focus will change very quickly to Tuesday.
“Up until then, our full focus is on Saturday.
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“We only need to look at other encounters against teams near the bottom to know that this will be a tough one.
“It’s picked up a bit, and I think the Tuesday game means nothing unless we get something on Saturday.
“We’re not paying any disrespect to our opposition on Saturday, but we’ll be doing all that we can to get three points.
“It’s never a given in the National League, so we’ve got to be at our best and perform with consistency now from Saturday’s game.
“Training’s been good and we want to take that into Saturday.”
Ebbsfleet are onto their third manager of the season, and have entrusted their hopes of survival onto one of their players; Josh Wright.
It’s Wright’s first managerial job after spending the majority of his playing career in the Football League, and he’s managed to pick up points in recent weeks, with draws against Rochdale, Woking, Yeovil Town and Boston in their last six league matches.
Hinshelwood is expecting an ‘all or nothing’ mentality from Saturday’s hosts, who are in desperate need of wins if they want to remain in the fifth tier for another season.
The York manager continued: “Results have picked up a little bit, they’ve got a couple of draws under their belt and are trying to pick up some momentum.
“The new manager has come in and seems to be building a togetherness amongst his group, and he seems to be happy with it.
“We’ve got to be wary for sure, but the focus is on ourselves.
“I’ve seen the shape and how they like to play, we look at little bits of detail of how the opposition like to play, but we also focus on the little bits of detail that we can improve on as well.
“Our planning doesn’t change, it’s a game that we’ll take very seriously and not take our eye off of anything at any moment.
“We’ll really concentrate on giving a good account of ourselves.
“It’s all or nothing, they’ve got to chuck everything at it so we’ve got to be ready for it.
“I think that they will come and press us hard, they’ll make it really difficult for us and we’ve got to be prepared for that.
“If we think that we’ll go there and get everything our own way and three points handed to us, then we’ll be very much mistaken.
Adam Hinshelwood will take the opportunity to catch-up with Ebbsfleet United loanee Tyler Cordner. (Image: Tom Poole) “They’ll be all out and beating a team that is at the top end of the table will give them a huge amount of confidence, so they’ll be looking to do that.
“The next thing is for them to start getting a run of wins together, and that’ll definitely be how he’s viewing it.
“I hope it doesn’t come this weekend, I hope that we’re at it and can give a bit of consistency to our performances.
“Our sort of focus really is to not worry too much on what the opposition is doing or how they’re feeling, we just know that it’ll be a National League game, and any game at this level, you’ve got to take seriously.
“We’ve got to perform more like we did against Woking for the remaining 17 games.”
Hinshelwood will also have the opportunity to catch-up with loanee Tyler Cordner and ex-winger Callum Harriott, who joined Ebbsfleet from York earlier in the campaign due to personal reasons.
Both players are currently injured and won’t be available against City, but Hinshelwood hopes to have a conversation with both nonetheless.
“It’ll be good to see him [Harriott] and see how he’s getting on, off of the pitch on a personal level.
“Hopefully his injury is nothing too sinister, because both of the lads, Tyler and Callum, both need to be playing regular football.
“I’m hoping that they’re both well and aren’t out for too long.”
