'Gutted' Maidstone United boss Hakan Hayrettin 'bitterly disappointed' at injury-time Chesterfield defeat

Darren Oldaker struck the winner for the unbeaten Spireites in the 94th minute to break the hosts’ hearts at the Gallager Stadium.

Earlier, James Alabi headed in an equaliser on 88 minutes to cancel out Kabongo Tshimanga’s opener six minutes earlier.

The result was harsh on the Stones who were worthy of at least a point but were denied by some great saves by Lucas Covolan.

“I don’t think we’ve played better than that this season,” Hayrettin told Kent Online. “It’s a technical issue we’ve lost, with the goals we conceded, not because of our ability.

“We did well, we didn’t deserve to lose, it’s a massive step forward in what we’re trying to achieve.

“We’re bitterly disappointed. There’s going to be highs and lows, this is the National League, you’ve just got to get used to it.

"I’m gutted for the boys because they’ve given us what they had, we gave a good account of ourselves and we tried to do everything the right way.

“For periods of the game we were the better team but unfortunately that’s football.”

Praising Chesterfield, Hayrettin added: “When you come up against a good team like that they’ll keep working for 90 minutes, and fair play to Cookie (Paul Cook), he’s got a good team there, he’s got them well-drilled and they’ll keep working.”

Overall, Hayrettin was delighted with his side’s display but was left frustrated with the errors that cost them in the end.

“I’d rather have the points in the bag but I can’t take anything away from the performance today,” he explained.

“We put on a performance today that was worthy of winning any game at this level but if you make mistakes, and it is mistakes, you get punished.

“We’ve got to be marking goalside for the first one - if we are, their player (Tshimanga) doesn’t get a free run in the box - and the second one we should be stopping them getting the ball into that area.

"The players are disappointed but I’m proud of them today.”