Why John Pemberton is confident Chesterfield would have stayed up had National League season not been put in doubt

The campaign has been suspended indefinitely and a decision is yet to be made on how to conclude it.

Caretaker boss Pemberton led the Spireites to five wins in nine to lift them from third bottom and five points from safety to 19th.

And it is this run of form which Pemberton believes would have got them over the finishing line in their final eight matches.

“My personal opinion is that we would not have gone down,” he told the DT.

“I think we had turned a corner.

“I think we had shown more than enough in the games that we have had that we were strong enough to stay in the division.

“We got ourselves out of the bottom four on merit so I can sleep well by saying that we have not got out of it by default.

“We have got out of it through our own hard work and we deserve to be out of it with what we have shown as a club in the previous 10 weeks.”

If the season does not resume then it will either be made null and void or league positions could be decided using average points per game.

If this was to happen Chesterfield would be overtaken by Wrexham but they would still not drop into the bottom four.

Pemberton believes the average points per game method would be a “good option” as long as the teams at the top of all the divisions were promoted.

“It is unfair on people who have been top of the league in every division so possibly having the points per game and having no relegation and just promotion and try to even that out the following year, if that is an option, then I think that is a good option to take,” he added. “But I honestly do not know and I do not think anybody knows otherwise if they did it would have been solved by now.”