YORK City boss Martin Foyle thinks it will take ten games for the Blue Square Bet Premier table to show its true colours.

With the Minstermen hoping to pick up their first win of the season against Barrow at Bootham Crescent tonight, Foyle reckons almost a quarter of the campaign’s games need to be played before there can be a true reflection of how things are shaping up.

York, following their 2-2 draw at Bath City on Saturday, are yet to hit the winning trail this term – but they are by no means the only fancied side not to get up and running.

Rushden & Diamonds, last year’s play-off semi-finalists, prop up the table with just one point, while Cambridge and Kettering are also low down the ladder.

Luton may top the pile but Hayes & Yeading, Gateshead and Forest Green have all had reasonable starts and Foyle says it takes a ten-game standard for the league to settle down.

“The league starts to open up,” he said. “You look at it and there are Rushden, Cambridge, Kettering and York and these big teams are all in the bottom half. They are going to be up there (at the end).

“I look after the first ten. That’s where the benchmark is. You have played some away matches and home matches and you have got to be in the top ten.”

As City return to home affairs tonight, Foyle reflected on the opening day home defeat to Kidderminster Harriers as the Minstermen look to resume normal service – and re-establish a fortress which was breached only twice last year.

“The first game is horrible,” he added. “I always like to be away from home to kick-start the season. Players can get bored in pre-season and sometimes you can get caught – and we did.

“But there were two goals, and two mistakes. They were our fault. They didn’t come from what they did to us.”

About Barrow, he said: “All these games are very awkward but the last two games we have played really well and it is individual errors and getting them out of the locker.

“I am not panicking. We are creating enough chances and there is not a lot wrong. We just need to go back to basics.”

Last year’s top scorer Richard Brodie is yet to get off the mark so far this season and had a difficult afternoon at Bath, spurning a number of good chances.

But Foyle, a striker himself, is satisfied his top marksman is getting into position.

“They aren’t dropping,” he said. “If you look back at the Kidderminster game he probably had three or four chances. He is having his shots and sometimes it is easy to blame people for missing.

“But he has got into these positions. We are playing a front three and that is a little bit strange for Brodes and Michael Rankine but that’s the way we want to play.”