Adam Lakeland says his Halifax side will have to be at their best if they want to get a result against York City on Saturday.

Both clubs are aiming to build on encouraging starts to the season, and both are hoping to go one better than their play-off defeats in the previous campaign.

"They're in good form, they've probably got one of the biggets budgets in the league, they've got a very good squad and they came very close last year," Lakeland told the Courier.

"And they look like they're going to be right up there again this season.

"I watched them a few weeks ago against Carlisle and they were superb on that evening, and have been in great form since then.

"We know it's going to be a difficult game, but despite us losing on Saturday, we've been in excellent form as well, and we've shown we're a very capable team on our day.

"Hopefully it's game where we can be individually and collectively somewhere near our best levels, and if we are, we can be confident we can give them a good game and hopefully that'll see us get a good result.

"But we know, when you come up against the best teams in the league, you've got to be at your best yourselves to give yourselves a chance of getting a result."

When asked if Saturday was a game between two promotion contenders, Lakeland said: "I think we'd both like to say yes to that, and of course, we both want to try and get out of this league.

"But it's still early doors, especially for us.

"They've obviously had a change of manager, but a lot of those players have been together quite some time and you only have to look at, not only the players in their 11 or on the bench, but the players they have sat in the stands most weeks.

"They've got a very good team and a very deep and healthy squad.

"So they rightly should be regarded as one of the promotion contenders.

"We're obviously still relatively early doors as a group, I've only been here for a matter of months and so have a lot of the players.

"But it these early stages of the season, we've shown a hell of a lot of promise and progress and I've no doubt we'll keep on getting better as a team as the season goes on.

"If we can keep on doing that then we've got just as good a chance as many others of being in and around that top seven, which is where we want to be."

Town's home attendances so far this season have seen a drop on last year's figures, but Saturday's crowd should be swelled by a strong travelling contingent.

"I think they've always got a massive role to play, to be honest," Lakeland said on how important the Halifax supporters could be this weekend.

"We've probably been a bit disappointed with the total attendance in a couple of the games we've had, particularly when we're playing some really good stuff at The Shay.

"Outside of our first game there at Forest Green, in which we played ever so well and lost, we are unbeaten there.

"We've put in some really good performances, we've played an exciting, attacking brand of football and scored quite a lot of goals.

"I said when I came in that I wanted to give the supporters an enthusiastic, energetic, hard-working and honest, front-footed team that they'd enjoy coming and watching, and a team for them to get behind.

"And I feel, even though it's still early doors, we have seen a hell of a lot of that from the players.

"I'm hoping we get a healthy crowd on Saturday, we know it's going to be a bumper crowd anyway with York and the number of supporters they'll bring.

"They're a big club and they're well supported on the road.

"Hopefully people who've maybe not been down to The Shay for a while, or who haven't had the opportunity to come to too many games so far this season, will come out in the numbers on Saturday and get behind the team."

Lakeland says it is "unlikely" any of Town's injured players will be available for the game.

On latest signing Ollie Smith, who has joined on a one month loan deal from Bolton, Lakeland said: "Dylan Crowe's probably another couple of weeks away and we've allowed Harvey Sutcliffe to go out on loan to Cleethorpes because he needs to get games.

"So we felt we needed to bring in someone else who could give us that option to play at right-back, and Ollie gives us that."

Lakeland isn't expecting any other additions to follow Smith through the door though.

"For the time being, that'll be it," he said.

"We're always looking, but nothing in particular we're after as such.

"But you've always got to keep your finger on the pulse."