9th : It's good old Lesterfield
By theimps.tk
August 3 2009
If there's one team in this division that you could point to and say that they are a one-man team, then there's little surprise that vast majority would point towards Chesterfield.
Chesterfield, Cheaterfield, Chesterfailed, Lesterfield, whichever way you look at it and whatever you want to call them, the men from Saltergate are not exactly a team that stay out of the headlines. Winning promotion via very dubious means in 2000/1, the Spirites returned to League Two in 2007/8 and have only achieved promotion pushes on two occasions because of one man and one man alone, Jack Lester.
Statistically it is proven that Chesterfield are far better when they have Lester in their side. Not only taking into account a record of 45 goals in 73 League games, his goals made enough difference to gain Chesterfield a whopping 17 points (difference calculated in goals turning draws into wins, defeats into draws and defeats into wins) as well as his goal saving Chesterfield from an embarrassing FA Cup defeat to Droylsden. The season before also saw a similar impact, his goals gaining Chesterfield a reasonable 13 points. The one problem that Lester has it his disciplinary record, gaining eight yellow cards and two red cards last season and a further seven yellow cards in 2007/8.
It's fair to say that Chesterfield don't have even close to another player that has a similar impact to Lester, infact the rest of them fit nicely into the brackets of irrelevance. There's no-one else that really stands out as a player capable of pushing Chesterfield onto wins if Lester doesn't play. Martin Gritton is alright but will only score you ten or so goals a season. Drew Talbot might get you a few, but other than that it's a squad full of nothing really.
In terms of the management, despite almost getting them in the Playoffs, the Chesterfield fans were far from happy with Lee Richardson. In all fairness Richardson didn't do a bad job considering he had a one-man team and he certainly didn't produce a team with weak displays from what I saw. He has now been replaced by John Sheridan, a manager with a fairly decent reputation from a decent record in three different spells as Oldham's manager, the longest being a recent three year spell that ended in March after a controversial night out that also saw players such as Lee Hughes leave Boundary Park.
Whether Sheridan can adapt to League Two will certainly be an interesting question as unlike Chesterfield, Oldham had a fairly decent all-around squad, but he should do reasonable well in the hot-chair and I can picture him leading Chesterfield to another Playoff challenge. However, I don't think they are good enough to actually make the Playoffs, not unless they get another striker capable of AT LEAST fifteen goals a season, or at least another player in the squad who can make an impact a reasonable fraction of that of Lester.
If you do not already have an account Click here to Register.
