'I am still learning' - Akwasi Asante on his new Chesterfield role under Paul Cook

The 30-year-old, who has played as a striker for most of his career, has been used in a ‘10’ role under Paul Cook this season.

“I have said to the manager that I will play wherever he wants me to play and I am enjoying it,” he said. “It is the first time in my career that I have played in that position, I am still learning, the gaffer talks me through it everyday in training. I try to improvise and do the best I can.”

The Dutch-born forward has had an on-off season so far due to niggling injuries but he feels he is over them now.

He explained: “I had a couple of niggles at the start of the season but I have got to the bottom of that. I have been working hard in the gym to give myself the best chance of staying fit. I feel great now that I have got a couple of games under my belt.

“I was struggling with a hamstring problem for a couple of months, it kept coming on and off. I kept playing through it but it just came to a point when we played York where I could just not do it anymore. I said to the gaffer that I needed to come out to get it fixed and he was really good with me.”

Asante scored his fifth goal of the season on New Year’s Day when he scored Chesterfield’s second against Scunthorpe United.

“It is always nice to get on the scoresheet because I have not scored for a while,” he said.

“The lads were brilliant today, a 4-1 win on New Year’s Day is a great way to start off the new year and everyone is buzzing.”

On his goal, he added: “I saw a big gap open up and I just ran into it, DJ (Darren Oldaker) is a good player and he has got the vision and he found me. The rest was instinctive.”