Wilson: '˜We are not a club on its knees'

Chesterfield boss Danny Wilson. Picture by Steve Flynn.

This is despite financial uncertainties surrounding the club following Dave Allen’s resignation from the position of chairman at last week’s AGM.

Long-standing director Mike Warner has taken over the position as chairman while Allen remains the club’s majority shareholder and benefactor.

Wilson and the rest of the staff at the Proact Stadium have been given assurances over payments of wages and bills in the short-term future.

And the Spireites manager warned any clubs looking to lure their star players away at a cut price that Chesterfield ‘is not a club on its knees’.

“That’s the art of negotiation, whether people perceive you with money or not,” said Wilson.

“If you’ve got a value of a player and you believe that value is solid then you’re entitled to stick out and get true value for them. I presume that’s exactly what we’ll do.

“People will have to remember the club is not on its knees. We have a fantastic benefactor behind us and there still is from my point of view for the long term.

“He’ll do what’s best for the club. In that respect I don’t think it’ll be easy for any players to just take players at whatever cost they think he’s worth. They will have to negotiate as they always do.

“Dave Allen is the major shareholder and until that’s not the case he is the benefactor that’s kept this club going for a good few number of years now.”

Wilson is confident he will still be able to work on a one-in, one-out basis if there was to be any player sales.

“The financial will be the same as the start of the season where it’ll be one-in, one-out,” he said.

“If one goes out we’ll be able to replace them, or we’ll be able to use the funds available with a bit of luck to bring someone in.

“I don’t think that will change whatever happens to be quite honest.”

With several key figures sidelined through injury, Wilson has had to turn to youth and has backed the club’s emerging talents to perform.

He said: “It puts a lot of the pressure on the young lads but they’ve got to come into the professional game sooner rather than later.

“If he’s 21 and he’s not played first team football then you’d ask why. If you’re 16 or 17 now it’s fantastic, we were all playing at 16 or 17 in the first teams when I was coming through.

“There were lots of players my age playing in the first teams at that time, albeit not 11 or 12 of them, there would be a sprinkling in the team.

“We’ve had to put more in the team now than we would have normally had to. Would they have been given the opportunity? Yeah, I think they would.”

And added: “In a team that’s functioning well I think you would have seen a different performance from them as well.

“Unfortunately, the timing is never right. They’ve been thrown in together and they can only get good experience from it. Difficult but it’ll be good for them.”