STEVE WATSON has said York City have to approach tomorrow as the first of three "must-win games" in the hunt for the National League North title.

Curzon Ashton are the visitors to Bootham Crescent tomorrow (3pm) ahead of the visit of Hereford on Tuesday night and a trip to Alfreton Town the following Saturday.

Alfreton, currently 13th-placed, are the highest-ranked of City's three immediate opponents, but Watson believes the challenge of sides visiting the home of the Minstermen cannot be discounted.

"We have to look at them as three must-win games," Watson said. "It might not work out that they need to be must-win games but that's the way we have to approach them.

"As we thought earlier, teams are dropping points and results are turning for different teams but we have got to look at these as nine points.

"That's not being disrespectful to anybody we're playing. They'll be looking at it the same way. They're coming here to win the game - you can see by teams' reactions that coming here and getting a result means a lot and it will be very difficult.

"We need to defend the way we defended on Saturday, be clinical when we get our chances, but we need to create and control the game better."

A workmanlike York last week came away from Kidderminster Harriers with a 1-0 victory. There was not much spectacular about the performance, barring the sharpness of Dan Maguire in netting the only goal. Watson is not complaining too much at this stage of the season - and knows where he wants to see improvement.

"The three points is the most important thing," he admitted. "Obviously you want to control the game better than we did. We've worked on that this week.

"We got a couple of good days' training, albeit tough with the training ground underwater a little bit, but we got some good work in and made a decent addition to the squad."

The Nash were the team to end York's unbeaten start to this league campaign with a 1-0 win at the Tameside Stadium. It was a desperately frustrating afternoon for the Minstermen who never clicked in the Greater Manchester drizzle.

Curzon's last outing was February 8, when they lost 1-0 at home to Gateshead.

"I'm not somebody who looks at getting one back but that will be one of the most disappointing days of the season," Watson recalled.

"The first-half performance was poor but there were a lot of things on the day I didn't enjoy at all.

"The stuff after the game - which I'm not going to dwell on - there was a lot I didn't enjoy about that day.

"It just happens they're the next team we're playing and looking to beat.

"We need to set up as we always do, to be hard to beat, but more expansive than we have been."

Of Curzon's three weeks' rest, he added: "It can work both ways. You can be a lot fresher for it. We trained today and had to taper it to the ground. It was very, very heavy and you're working very hard.

"They might be a bit fresher, but football-wise they may be a little rusty.

"I tend to do a minimum amount of work on the opposition - there's what you have to do, knowing their system, their players, their strengths and weaknesses - but I spend a lot of time thinking about ourselves and how we can be at our best and freshest."