Chesterfield owner Dave Allen tells boss John Sheridan to 'keep going' and 'it will come right'

The Spireites lost 4-0 at Sutton United on Saturday and slipped to second bottom of the National League after suffering their heaviest loss of the season.

Town have won one out of 12 so far this campaign and travel to Hartlepool United on Tuesday night.

After Saturday's defeat Sheridan was downbeat, appeared to question his own future at the club and said he would speak to Allen over the weekend.

Crossley, who took today's pre-match press conference, said: "Dave (Allen) has spoken to John (Sheridan) and said 'carry on, it will come right'.

"He (Allen) is a brilliant chairman and he will back him as much as he can.

"They speak regular.

"He brought John here because the club was in trouble and he got them out of it. We are lingering at the bottom but what manager would you bring in if you wanted to get out of this anyway? It would be John Sheridan.

"We will get out of it but it is a little bit frustrating because we expected to be a lot higher and we are not."

Sheridan said the thrashing by Sutton was a 'shocking' result and a 'bad, bad performance'.

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Sheridan appeared to suggest he was considering his own position after Saturday's match when he said: "I have got to seriously look at things and see whether it is...what is the best thing to do. I am going to go home and think about things. I will speak to the chairman probably over the weekend. He will ring me.

"I will just see what is happening and the best way forward. We have nowhere near performed good enough so we will see what happens."

When asked about Sheridan, Crossley said: "He is down. I have worked with him for a long time and he is a good manager. He is frustrated. He feels responsible but he can't be totally responsible. We are all responsible. We have protected the players a lot and now they have to start rising to the occasion."

But it appears Sheridan is still remaining positive that they can turn things around, with Crossley adding: "The manager said to me this morning that he still believes we can get in the play-offs."

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One of the concerning aspects of the Sutton defeat was that one of Chesterfield's central defenders covered the most running distance and 'schoolboy' defending, according to Crossley.

"We have a system called GPS and the players wear it and it tells you how hard they run, when they run, how many sprints they do, when they sprint," he said. "Basically there is no hiding place with it and when you have got a centre-back covering a bigger distance and the most sprints in a game it means that the players have got to look at themselves because they did not run enough, they did not work hard enough. When the pressure is on, you should go harder no lower.

"That is what worried me at the weekend that one of our centre-halves covered the most distance in the game - it can't happen. It should be your midfield players and your wide players that are covering most distances."

He added: "And on top of that conceding schoolboy goals that you do not see at under 15 level. How can you coach that? It has to be down to the individual when it makes them mistakes. We have worked on team shape for two weeks solid now and a formation which we think suits our players best and they are not rewarding for us the work we are putting in.

"At the moment we have got a team that are not rising to the pressure so we might have to make a few changes."

Crossley also said that, in his opinion, not enough players are hurting from this poor run of form.

He also revealed that Sheridan pushed club for an overnight stay before the Sutton match to give them the best opportunity to get a win.

Crossley said: "We prepared properly, the club were good enough to let us travel the night before and pay for a nice hotel, got all the right food, all the right preparation, so my opinion is that the players have got to start having a look at themselves.

"It costs about £4,000 to the football club to stay overnight when you have got evening meal, pre-match meals, hotel, lovely rooms.

"John absolutely begged and begged to get that overnight stay because he thought our season had been kick-started against Torquay and we get that response.

"We went to Bromley on the day and we got beat so we tried to do something different. So do we go back to travelling on the day or not? We did not get the response we wanted. The players are going to watch the video from Saturday and they are going to sit and suffer and watch it and we want a response tomorrow night from Hartlepool."

Spireites fans can expect changes to the team selection tomorrow night.

Defender Laurence Maguire is not available through illness and could be out for around another week.

Anthony Gerrard will miss out due to his ongoing hamstring injury.

Striker Tom Denton did not start against Sutton because of the 3G pitch and the impact that could have on his knee, but he is contention to start tomorrow.

While David Buchanan is still a few weeks away from returning to action and it is hoped on-loan Norwich City striker Anthony Spyrou will link-up with Town for Saturday's match against Aldershot Town.