Saunders blames fatigue

A brace from Eoin Doyle, either side of a Jay O'Shea strike, lifted the Spireites into the top six and leaves Crawley without a victory since October 21.

Any chance they had of ending that desperate run evaporated once Doyle had latched on to Armand Gnanduillet's flick in the 34th minute as he held off two defenders before firing into the bottom corner from 12 yards.

It was Doyle's 23rd of the season and the Irishman released O'Shea in the 51st minute to curl a left-foot shot from the edge of the box past Lewis Price.

A defensive slip allowed Doyle to slip in his second, and although Crawley never gave up, they were well beaten on the night - as Saunders accepted.

He said: "We were beaten by a better team, we couldn't cope with the two strikers and the goals were bad ones from my point of view.

"We had some passages of play which were probably the best since I've been here and I have to take the positives out of the performance, but I think looking at the two teams, we had some players who had to play two games in three days and struggled for various reasons.

"I think physically they looked fitter and stronger than us. But I have to pick the positives, keep playing and building until we get a result and hopefully the belief comes back."

Chesterfield have now won their last four home games and assistant manager Leam Richardson said: "I think after the opening half-hour when the tempo raised a little bit, to a man the players performed very well and deserved the win.

"On paper their squad is a good one and they've got good players. They don't give up and if they put as much work in as that they will be okay and will get rewards.

"Full respect goes out to Dean (Saunders), his staff and his players because they made us work for it and it wasn't an easy 3-0."

Chesterfield now have three out of the next four games at home, starting with Doncaster on Saturday and Richardson added: "It's a great fixture for the fans. I saw them at Notts County when they put a good performance in and we expect a really tough game on Saturday.

"We will quickly dust ourselves down and our focus will turn to Doncaster tomorrow morning (Wednesday)."