David Artell upbeat despite 10-man Grimsby’s defeat to Chesterfield

David Artell felt 10-man Grimsby performed admirably in their 1-0 home defeat to Chesterfield.

The Mariners suffering a big setback early in the second half when goalkeeper Christy Pym brought down Lee Bonis on the edge of his box and was sent off.

Harvey Rodgers’ 72nd-minute own goal consigned them to a third home league defeat of the campaign.

But head coach Artell was not down on the performance his Grimsby team put in both before and after the pivotal incident.

“I thought we played well and didn’t give them much with 11 or 10,” said Artell. “That makes it tough to take when you feel the performance is there but you don’t get anything from it.

“I’m a big believer that if the performances are there then you will get the points eventually, which is the heartwarming thing.

“I thought the lads showed a great amount of desire and commitment and we still tried to play when we went a man down.

“We didn’t manage to get a goal, which I felt we deserved, so it is a bitter pill to swallow in that sense, but the performance didn’t give me anything to worry about.

“It was a 100 per cent red card but, ultimately, there are three or four different things that led to it, which we paid a heavy price for.”

The visitors are now eight unbeaten in all competitions and from their point of view it was a comfortable afternoon in tough conditions at a wet and windy Blundell Park.

Chesterfield’s first-team coach Gary Roberts said: “We knew what was coming. They’re a good team who scrap for everything, so it was always going to be a tough game.

“Saying that, I thought we handled them when it was 11-v-11 and then when they went down to 10, we dealt with that as we should’ve done as well.

“They started the game quite brightly but we always expected that from them being the home team. I think we did well to limit them in terms of clear-cut chances.

“From where I was standing, it looked a stonewall foul (for the red card) and there didn’t seem to be any complaints from them.

“We didn’t need to change much after that, we just had to go around them a little bit more and with more space on the outside of the pitch we could get our full-backs forward more.

“You have to make them work when they are down to 10 and complete that first pass, which we were able to do comfortably.”