Time for talking is over, says Paul Cook as Chesterfield aim to secure play-off place

Chesterfield have eight games to secure themselves a play-off place and a shot at promotion to League One. The Spireites slipped out of the top seven after defeat to Oldham in midweek but they could climb back in there with a positive result against Accrington Stanley on Saturday.

The 3-0 loss was a hammer blow to their ambitions and Cook preferred not dissect it further and instead move on to this weekend’s game.

He said: “I am not going into much today, there has been enough said from everyone. Let’s just look forward to the game against Accrington tomorrow, that is the most important thing for me. Tuesday night has gone.

“The challenge for all managers is to what depth do you want to go into to be better. As you can imagine from Tuesday night at 10 o’clock to where we sit this morning there has been a lot of in-depth stuff.

“I just feel managers talk too much, I just think managers become boring and repetitive. The interviews are the same. There is a league table which we are striving for which is 46 games. We have not played enough games yet to be able to say we are ‘that’ or ‘that’.”

“We are onto Accrington now, we are looking forward to it, we will take good travelling support, we are respectful of Accrington and we know how difficult a place it is to go. There is one mindset and that is winning. There are eight games to go. I have spoken enough about what we need to achieve.”

Accrington are safe in mid-table and are not in any threat of being relegated. But they have not won any of their last six, including a 4-0 home defeat to Notts County on Tuesday.

Cook, who always speaks well about Accrington after his time as manager there, said: "Outstanding season. Probably the last couple of games they have done as well as maybe they could. I am sure some of their lads are maybe running out of petrol now. They have probably got every last breath out of them. They have been safe for a long time so that is great credit to them. It will be a tough game, we are well prepared for what is coming, and hopefully we can see what we are all about tomorrow.”