Paul Cook 'hopeful' of adding to Chesterfield squad as Spireites slip to defeat at Altrincham

The Spireites slipped to a one-nil defeat at Altrincham on Tuesday night with Matty Kosylo scoring the only goal of the game three minutes into the second-half when his shot from distance took a freakish bounce off the turf and flew over the diving Scott Loach.

Defeat leaves Town still second in the table but they are now 10 points behind leaders Stockport County, who have a game in hand.

Chesterfield now have a fight on their hands to secure a play-off spot in what is a very congested league table.

The deadline to sign players for this season is Thursday.

Cook said: "What we had on the bench, that is us flat out. We didn’t have any other options.

"Over the last few weeks we have not had the numbers to help the players on the pitch.

"Our supporters know we are trying our best to bring players in.

"The board has been ever so supportive to me since I came through the door.

"There is money available to bring players in, but it is no use signing players for the sake of it. We have got to sign players that will make us better and if we can’t do that I am not going to be rushing into signing players just to say ‘we have signed a player.’

Asked if he is hopeful of making any additions, he replied: “I am always hopeful. Our supporters have got to know we are doing our best.

"These lads, apart from Fraser Kerr out of the team, that was us. I had nothing else to select from. These lads are getting picked every week because they are the ones available, not because we think they are world-beaters and they are doing great.

"But we have been trying to recruit for a good few weeks but if the right players don’t come round then there is nothing you can do.”

The Blues probably didn’t deserve to lose to Alty, but they didn’t deserve to win either.

Chesterfield had plenty of possession but failed to create much of note until towards the end.

"I don’t think at any stage we ever deserved to lose the game, that is for sure,” Cook said.

"But the disappointing thing is we have not really looked like scoring. We did not look like we had a cutting edge in the final third.

"Did we have the quality of crosses going in? Did we have the players going into those areas to score? Probably not tonight.

"While the first-half saw us probably dominate territory, similar to the second-half, we probably just lacked that cutting edge.

"We never really had any clear-cut chances and that is probably the most disappointing thing.

"We are at the stage of the season where results are probably more important than performances.

"Unfortunately tonight we have let our supporters down a little bit.

"But we have got to be careful about our criticism towards them because did we give everything on the pitch to win? Probably yes. But was it good enough? Definitely not.”

On the unfortunate winning goal, Cook added: "It is not a good goal we have conceded, we can’t give someone that time to turn in those areas and get shots off, we have got to be more aggressive.

“Scott can’t do anything about that – it has taken a big bounce and gone over him. That is football sometimes.

"But did we do enough to win the game tonight? I’m not so sure we did. But did we deserve to lose? Definitely not.”