OPINION: '˜Jack's tactics have gone horribly wrong'

Just when Chesterfield most needed to beat teams around them to stay up, Jack Lester has come up with a new set of tactics that have gone horribly wrong, the contrast with the away match at Mansfield could not be more stark.

In that game the Spireites came up with a great display of interchanging passing football and Mansfield were lucky to draw, on Saturday both teams were awful and we managed to let one of their players go on a run unchallenged and have a free shot to win the game.

When we put together a wining run around the turn of the year it was a 4-2-3-1 formation, with good work being done by the attacking midfield three to link up with Kristian Dennis.

Since having had a glut of injuries and brought in 11 players in the transfer window things have been chopped and changed until no-one knows what our best, or least worst, 11 actually is, or what formation they should play.

We are trying to play with two wingers which simply does not work.

An ex-player has popped up on social media to critique Jack Lester’s tactics and nearly everyone agrees with him.

He says: “Brown isn’t good enough by a country mile. He regularly put Talbot and others under unnecessary pressure in the first half - with badly placed or badly weighted passes.

“Also on several occasions when we were going forward in the first half he was the obvious ‘out ball’ … but his team-mates saw him, turned back to look for someone else and lost possession.
“Hines isn’t good enough. On this performance he isn’t Div 2 quality. He is either unfit or has lost whatever he had.

“Reed needs to turn forward when he gets the ball. The key thing being turn. His default decision when in possession was to look backwards or sideways even when he was in space. This cost us momentum and often possession when he gave the ball away.

“Too many of our players seemed unable or unwilling to turn with the ball even when they had acres of space. ‘Play the way you’re facing’ yes - but not all players all the time surely?

“Our young full back Smith was the best player on the pitch by some way - well, the certainly the one with the most potential. I’d see him as a bargain at £1M for a championship side.”

You can’t really argue with any of that, but the damage has already been done, we’ve gained one point from four “must win games”.