Kieron Dyer urges Chesterfield to ‘go on a run’ after responding to Barnet loss

Chesterfield coach Kieron Dyer challenged the team to build on the standard they set in their 3-0 victory over Colchester which saw them move back into the League Two play-off zone.

Will Grigg’s penalty and a Dilan Markanday strike put the home side 2-0 up at the break.

And substitute Lee Bonis added a third goal midway through the second half as the Spireites responded well to Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to Barnet.

Dyer said: “Very good performance. Every man played their part.

“We just seemed at it. There was a hunger to us.

“There were some harsh words said after Barnet. I think that the gaffer (Paul Cook) said it was a game that there wasn’t much in it. We shouldn’t lose the game. We did lose the game.

“(Cook) always talks about we take one step forward and one step backwards. We’ve got to go on the run now. We’ve seen our fixtures. We’ve seen the games to come.

“We’ve got two home games we wanted to get back-to-back wins, so the first part’s done now. We can’t drop off with our energy levels.

“We’ll look at the team over the next two days, see if we have to freshen it up, but that is the standard now. That has been set. The hunger, the desire, the penetration, passing the ball, emergency defending at times, it was perfect, so we’re really pleased.”

Colchester head coach Danny Cowley had no complaints about the result that saw his team slip seven points behind the top seven.

“On the night we got beat by the better team,” Cowley said.

“I think we saw an opponent that was top of their game, played with a real rhythm, a real flow. We came up well short, unfortunately.

“They’ve got lots of good players. For sure, one of the most talented teams in the division. And they found a really good rhythm and a flow. We didn’t get anywhere near what we are capable of getting to in terms of our energy, our intensity, our aggression against the ball.

“We had 16 players tonight that got nowhere near their levels. The referee was probably worse than all 16 and we were really disappointed with our 16 so that was where the record was at.

“But that wasn’t the reason tonight, we got beaten by the better team, we have to look at ourselves.

“When we had the ball, we gave it up far too cheaply. It’s not a good strategy to let the opponent punch you in the face before you fight back.

“Credit to Paul Cook and his Chesterfield players. I thought they were at their best tonight.

“It was probably the best performance of an opposing team this season. We didn’t find our levels and that is really disappointing for us.”