Chesterfield boss Paul Cook answers fans' questions on playing two strikers and lack of pace in defence
Paul Cook has ruled out the possibility of playing two strikers up front regularly for Chesterfield.
The Spireites are sixth in the League Two table after eight games, four points off the top. They rescued a late draw against MK Dons last Saturday but they are four without a win in all competitions.
Town have the joint fifth best attack in the division with 12 goals netted but they have only scored once in their last two outings and some fans have called for Cook to deploy two strikers up top. Cook has always preferred a 4-2-3-1 formation, a system which has brought him a lot of success in his managerial career, and he does not plan on changing that now.
"One of the things I pride myself on in my whole managerial career is that, I would suggest, in 90% of the seasons, the team I have managed have finished as leading scorers in the division,” Cook said in response to a question at a fans’ forum this week. “Very few teams are playing two up front now, very few. I am not being disrespectful to people my age and older, it is something that that age group clamour and crave because we all got brought up with it but modern day football is different now.
"What we are coming across now with low blocks and stuff like that, the way to beat it is width and crosses in the box. At the minute, we are not doing both well. To play two up front you have to put the ball forward quickly and hit the two lads at the top end and your team has got to be built then on picking up second balls. Our team is built on flair players who can play and a totally different way. I respect the two up front, but will I be turning to it? No.”
Cook was also asked about Chesterfield needing more pace in central defence, with supporters questioning whether they need more speed than what Chey Dunkley, 33, and Kyle McFadzean, 38 offer.
He responded: “It is a fair question. In general, the goals we concede are from individual errors that are costing us. So it is irrelevant, the ages of them (Dunkley and McFadzean). In my world, they are both still very strong and aggressively good players. How many times have you seen players run past them and score? It doesn’t happen. It is all counter-attacks and breakaways. We have just got to better as a team to stop making individual errors and put our chances away.”