Dragons 'Must Beat Chester' To Have Any Title Hope: Roberts

And nearly ten years after scoring for the Blues at the Racecourse ground against his current side, a goal in red would go down quite well too!

This Sunday’s live BT Sport game is of course the highly anticipated cross-border derby, a game always filled full of intensity and drama - and few players have played in the grudge match for both clubs.

On a weekend when many rivals cross swords in both England and in Scotland, there won’t be any ground with more passion inside them than in north Wales.

The former Chester defender believes victory can act as rocket fuel to fire Wrexham onto the winning run they need to turn heads at the top.

Ahead of the live game, Roberts told us: “Everyone know what this game means to the fans. I’ve been on both sides of it, so I have known about the fixtures since I was in the youth team at Chester all those years ago.

“I scored for the club at Wrexham in fact! It would be nice to say I have scored for both sides in the derby if I can come up with something on Sunday - I’m not sure how many players have done that!

“But it’s all about getting three points. We know that, and we know we’ve got to do everything we can to win this match.

“We’ve not given up on the title. I’ve got to say we’ve got to win Sunday now, but if we do then it’s a victory in that sort of game that can really give a season a lift.”

You wouldn’t have thought Wrexham are 12 games unbeaten considering the mood around the club right now.

The reason for that is simple - they have drawn nine of those matches and have fallen eight points behind Macclesfield. Not good enough said captain Shaun Pearson recently, and Roberts can’t disagree.

“It’s strange to be on the best undefeated run in the league but in the bottom half of the actual form table,” the former FC Halifax Town man concluded. “We can’t hide our frustration.

“We need to get out of the habit of drawing games as that’s what hurts you the most. Turning draws into wins is what we’ve got to do, and we need to go back-to-back for a while.

“We’ve already shown we can beat Chester. We won 1-0 at their place earlier in the season but it was a tight derby on an even tighter pitch.

“I expect us to see more of the ball this time and although you can never tell totally, I perhaps don’t expect it to be won by a huge swing. So we need to make sure we don’t come out second best anywhere on the pitch.

“We need to win, there’s no hiding from that. But if we can get three points, on such a big occasion, it could give our season a real jump start.”