What John Askey said immediately after Hartlepool United's defeat to Chesterfield

Hartlepool were spirited in their endeavours against the league’s runaway leaders but were ultimately undone by Armando Dobra’s goal inside five minutes as the Spireites edged a close contest in the North East.

Dobra latched onto Emmanuel Dieseruvwe’s headed clearance to fire through a crowded penalty area with his strike taking a slight deflection on its way to beat goalkeeper Joel Dixon. At that stage you might have feared the worst for Pools given some of their recent form and who they were up against, but, to their credit, they wrestled their way back into the contest to make a close game of things.

Dieseruvwe had already wasted a big opportunity in the opening minute when capitalising on some slack Chesterfield defending to take the ball around goalkeeper Harry Tryer before slipping ahead of executing his finish. The striker was then sent through one-on-one midway through the first half only to drag wide of the far post.

The away side controlled the second half without really testing Dixon too much which meant Pools were always in the game but they were, unfortunately, unable to claim what would have been an excellent point against the league leaders.

“We’re disappointed but I can't ask anymore of the players in terms of their commitment,” Askey told BBC Radio Tees of Hartlepool’s performance.

"I thought every single one of them gave everything they’ve got. They competed with the team who I believe will win the league. We’ve had chances where on another day Mani [Dieseruvwe] would score two goals and it’s a different game then.

"The first one he’s slipped and then the second one he’s one-on-one with the keeper. But he’s played really well, he’s got hold of the ball and when we create a chance he’s the one it falls to, or he creates, so you can’t knock Mani. We’re just disappointed today he hasn’t been able to take them.

"But we competed really well,” Askey added.

"We defended a lot better. We’re disappointed to concede so early on as it makes it an uphill battle but we did have chances to pull ourselves back into it.

"We’ve done everything we could possibly do and I’ve said to them if we can put that effort and that commitment in against other teams then we’re going to win more games than we’ll lose. But you’ve got to do that against what we call supposed ‘lesser teams.’ If we don’t do that then we’ll come unstuck.

"But now we’ve got players back we look a different team. We’ve still got players to come back in as well, but we look stronger than what we did five or six weeks ago.

"We’ve given them a good game and apart from the goal they scored then they didn’t create a great deal. So we’ve got to realise we’re not far away but we’ve got to put that same effort in now that we have got the players to start and creep up the table.”