ROLAND GENT COLUMN: Display against Magpies a world away from previous games.

Lou Reed certainly proved to be a transformer for the Blues in the win against Notts County and I'm sure the average TV viewer would have been hard pressed to work out which team was near the top and which was near the bottom of League Two.
Spireites celebrate the third goal against Notts County.Spireites celebrate the third goal against Notts County.
Spireites celebrate the third goal against Notts County.

Reed and Weir together in front of the back four, with the young loanee from Sheffield United pulling the strings, made our side look so much different to the one that capitulated against Lincoln City and played fairly scrappily against Cheltenham Town.

It was good to see our forward line forcing County’s defenders in to making mistakes and gifting us a goal. If there’s one thing that Chesterfield have learned the hard way this season it’s that hard work and pressure yield as many results in this division as good play and pretty passing.

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Let’s be honest, agricultural Lincoln bullied Chesterfield and Notts probably thought they could do the same by simply pumping long balls to their veteran strike force Stead and Ameobi who proved largely ineffective. It was typical of Dan Jones to come back and get one against us - it’s taken until now with Drew Talbot’s return for us to look decent at left back, why did we ever let Dan go?

Gary Caldwell and his recruitment genius Guy Branston seemed to think we could play without full-backs, when in reality if you want to do that, your wide midfielders have to be pretty special; our previous managerial regime did not select anyone who fitted that bill.

So we have a foundation to build on to get us out of this mess. No one can predict whether we will make it, although a lot does rest on the shoulders of young Reed. Port Vale on Friday and Grimsby away are going to be huge as both of those teams are on long runs with out wining a match. On that note, Grimsby’s manager Michael Jolley was in the stand running the rule over our side and he seemed to look pretty concerned about what the Mariners might face.

Looking at Grimsby’s website it all looks to be doom and gloom, one poster saying he is convinced they are relegated unless they can beat Stevenage. Their fans seem to think their owner Mr Fenty doesn’t know what he is doing and has no game plan; unnecessarily sacking manager Marcus Bignot, then employing Russell Slade who seemed to be a personal friend of the owner, waiting far too long to give him the elbow and then employing a fellow in Jolley who has only managed at under 23 level in England.

Now where have we heard those sort of things before? Fingers crossed for survival.