Paul Cook has conceded that automatic promotion is probably out of Chesterfield’s reach now and admitted that a play-off place is ‘not a given.’

The Spireites slipped to a 1-0 defeat to Barnet on Saturday in a game which, just like at Crawley Town a week ago, they were not clinical enough. It is a result which leaves them outside the play-offs by two points and nine off third spot.

"We are going to have to come together as a group again because I have always maintained these (lads) could go up automatically, I don’t feel that now,” Cook told 1866 Sport. “It looks like we are going to have to try to go up in the play-offs. But the first thing we have got to do is get into the play-offs. That is the first thing because other teams will smell blood. We have got the players, we have got everything in our favour to do that.

"Unfortunately, we have probably been on an okay run, but it is not enough for this club. This club demands more. The fans demand more and we need more. We want players to idolise and trust and, at the minute, the fans are searching for that. I don’t shirk responsibility. As a group together, we need to do more.

"Unfortunately for us we have got a great squad but have I really found the right balance and team? Probably not. So we have got to do our best to find the formula to get in the play-offs because that is not a given. That is going to take a big effort. And we are going to have to find a way to go up in the play-offs by the looks of it, something I have never done as a manager, so it has to be a first for us all as a club.

“We have promised so much and yet delivered so little. We have got a strong group of players but, at the minute, it is like a car engine that is not firing properly and my job is try to make sure we get it firing.”

Just like at Crawley last time out, it was a game where big chances went begging, with Liam Mandeville wasting two opportunities, while Armando Dobra had one cleared off the line. The Spireites started brightly but had nothing to show for their efforts and they were poor in the second-half.

Cook continued: “Players who miss chances don’t miss them deliberately. When you get your moments you have to take them. We didn’t start the second-half. It is insane some of the things these players do. We all have a tin and what it says on your tin in reality is what you do. I always say players will revert to type.

“We had a couple of big moments but we didn’t take them. And the game was a bit bitty, scrappy, end to end. We have this defunct mode in us that just goes to madness. In the second-half, we just started giving the ball away time and time again."

Cook finished by praising the travelling 887 Spireites fans, saying: “I thought our fans today were magnificent. That is how to support your team. All I could hear late on in the game was them driving us forward. That was probably my best moment of the game.”