Chesterfield's defeat to Halifax 'stark reminder' as 'arrogance' creeps in, says Paul Cook

Substitute Rob Harker scored a late winner at The Shay, finishing from close-range after Ross FItzsimons spilled Matt Warburton’s free-kick from the edge of the box.

It was a tight game which deserved to finish goalless.

The Spireites drop to fourth following the loss.

It was Chesterfield’s first defeat in 10 in all competitions and the first time they have failed to score in a match this season.

"Today was probably a stark reminder to us about how hard you have to work to win football games,” Cook said.

"Probably a little bit of arrogance has crept into us and we have been flattened by Halifax.

"On the back of the week when you have had such success in the FA Cup against Wimbledon you are warning the players about standards, habits, everything that wins you games of football.

"Today we contributed massively to our own downfall.

"It is disappointing because it is a game we should never have lost.

"We very much lacked a cutting edge in the game.

“We never got into the situations that we wanted to.

"We were under no pressure in the game.

"The shots on goal for both teams were probably not many. I don’t remember any team having a clear-cut chance.

"We made bad decisions but we were never under pressure.”

Jeff King was penalised for a foul on the edge of his box and that led to Halifax taking the lead.

Cook added: "The goal comes from us giving the ball away cheaply, a decision to give a free-kick away in an area where if you keep giving free-kicks away, you are asking for trouble. We make those ridiculously bad decisions and I suppose it is something we might have to accept because that is what players do.

"Unfortunately we have let 1,300 travelling fans down but our fans know us and we will pick ourselves up and go again.”