YORK City boss Gary Mills is paying no heed to bookmakers’ odds that suggest the National League North title will be a two-horse race between his team and Salford.

Ahead of the start to the 2017/18 season on Saturday, the newly-relegated Minstermen have been installed as 4-1 second favourites to end the campaign as champions behind the 3-1 Lancashire outfit, who are partly owned by former Manchester United stars Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil Neville and Nicky Butt.

The next teams in the market are Kidderminster and Stockport at a comparatively generous 10-1, but Mills is not expecting the forthcoming campaign to be as straightforward, citing the fortunes of City last term as an example of the pitfalls presented by making such predictions.

He went on to reason that there will be both over and under-achievers in English football’s sixth tier, but remains confident in his own squad’s capacity to bounce back into the National League at the first attempt.

“I don’t like making predictions,” Mills insisted. “There are always a few surprises, but I know what we have got and what we are capable of.

“There will be some teams who you can’t believe are doing so well and others that you can’t believe aren’t doing better and, last season, our club were tipped to get in the top six, but we all know how wrong that turned out to be.”

City’s first three fixtures during the opening eight days of the season are at home to Telford (16-1) this weekend, followed by trips to Blyth Spartans (20-1) and Bradford Park Avenue (40-1).

The trio are all tipped to be outside the play-off reckoning and the only side with top-seven credentials, according to the odds compilers, City are set to face during their seven August fixtures are former Football League foes Darlington a week on Tuesday at Bootham Crescent.

With more than a quarter of the league campaign having been completed as early as September 12 and just one automatic promotion place up for grabs, meanwhile, Mills has stressed the importance of being among the pacesetters from the off.

“We want to get off to a good start, because winning games gives you confidence,” he declared. “You could also find yourself eight points off the top after four games if you don’t start well, meaning things have changed in a short space of time.

“We have to make sure we pick up points very early on. We have an excellent opportunity to do that at home to Telford and, then, we go to Blyth, who have come up and will be full of themselves, as well as a very honest team, as all sides are from the north-east.”