Chesterfield have a ‘glaring problem’ in midfield as poor summer recruitment proves costly

It’s now 12 games without a win since a pre-season victory against Matlock Town.

After the Dagenham game Chesterfield sit in the relegation places with five points and will need to hit promotion form in the next month just to drag themselves out of the mire.

Everyone can see the glaring problem and it’s midfield. Any side starting at home with five centre backs on the pitch, as we did at home to Dagenham, has got a problem.

Are you in our Chesterfield fans gallery?John Sheridan says he’s been enquiring about players, but until we get a loan player in the same scenario is going to keep repeating itself.

Recruitment under Martin Allen was awful, we are still stuck with some of his side and it’s obvious that things could also have gone a lot better this close season.

In Mike Fondop’s interview he commented that the club has some amazing talent on its books. We do, its just that we have far too many players in some positions and none in others, meaning it’s a lop-sided team.

Dagenham boss backs John Sheridan to ‘get it right’It’s OK for the club and various fans to say we should all stick together, everyone wants a win, but until the shape of the side is sorted out I can’t see improvement.

Stockport away was an example, of the fact that Chesterfield are going to have to put players out of position because we have no obvious left sided midfielder. The side looked neat in the first half, played some good stuff and restricted Stockport to one half chance, despite only creating two good scoring opportunities ourselves.

It was a 4-51-, but unfortunately that meant Scott Boden had to play on the left when we need him in the middle. In the second half Stockport put five across the centre and pressed Chesterfield, who were reduced to missing out the midfield and booting it in the air to Mike Fondop who was isolated. The result was, we created no chances second half from open play.

Our message boards are full of fans cogitating on what our best centre midfield pairing is, everyone’s come to the conclusion it’s Jonathan Smith plus somebody else.

No one can decide who the other player should be, as none of Curtis Weston, Robbie Weir and Sam Wedgebury fit the bill. None of them are the type of player to accurately pass the ball to the strikers and boss the game.

Woking FC sit proudly on top of the table, having come up from the National League South. One of the main reasons for their improvement is a loanee from Nottingham Forest, Toby Edser, he will soon return to the City Ground once his spell for the Cardinals is over and it’s maybe that type of signing John Sheridan is looking for.

Let’s hope it’s sooner rather than later.