Not much between League Two sides, says Chesterfield boss Jack Lester

His Spireites side, who dropped back into the bottom two of League Two on Boxing Day, face two teams chasing promotion over three days this weekend.

But aside from free-scoring leaders Luton, Lester said there was little between the rest.

Chesterfield entertain Colchester on Saturday looking to end a run of three consecutive defeats before travelling Coventry on New Year’s Day - two sides currently in the play-off places.

The Spireites gained a draw at Colchester earlier in the season and Lester said: “We are very ambitious for the performance we want to put on.

“We will be putting a team out we think can win the game - as we did against Crewe.

“They are on a good run but one that is no better than the one we were on a couple of weeks ago.

“I don’t think there is a lot in the league. Luton are the best but there is not much between the teams.

“We want to win every game we play. We are desperate to give the supporters something to cheer and move the club forward. We are very focused on being better.

“The players will be the key. It will be down to them. Of course we are in a difficult position, but we will come out of this.”

Lester said his players had been analysing what went wrong on Boxing Day, when the injury-hit side lost 2-0 to Crewe.

“There was probably some sloppy defending. We had lots of opportunities for crosses in the box and to get more players into the box to score goals,” he said.

“But the defending was not as good and at the level it has been recently, so it was a very disappointing day.

“I am not saying we deserved more but there were things that could be improved on.

“We did a lot of video work today (Thursday) and analysis work, looking at the Crewe game and where we could have been better - staff and players.

“We can’t bury our heads in the sand and we have got to look to improve. We can’t pretend it didn’t happen - so learn and get better.”

The Crewe game saw Lester switch the formation to 3-5-2 with Joe Rowley and Andy Kennett playing as wing backs in a more defensive role than the more usual 4-3-2-1 set-up.

“They were still in there and did have chances to score,” Lester said.

“You can get high and wide in those positions and they did that at times, but having three fit defenders was the reason why (we chose that formation). We had enough play to win the game.

“We picked a team that we thought would win and we lost.”