Karl Robinson was visibly frustrated after Salford’s impressive 10-game unbeaten run was ended as a late Brandon Cooper own-goal handed Chesterfield a 1-0 victory.
Salford were in the ascendancy for large periods of the contest and missed a golden opportunity to take the lead when striker Ryan Graydon hit the crossbar from five yards with the goal at his mercy.
Without a win in their previous five matches, Chesterfield soaked up pressure and snatched victory in the third minute of added time when defender Cooper turned the ball into his own net.
Robinson felt his side were the better team but was disappointed with the way they sat back and invited late Chesterfield pressure.
He said: “The better team lost in my view. I would say that for the 90 minutes we were by far the better team. But one thing that I try to run into the players is that you never sit back.
“But sometimes you have little bumps in the road and you just have to accept that.
“You are always going to have a night where the better team doesn’t get the result that they think they deserve. So yeah, we just go again.
“Chesterfield were not pouring forward in numbers at the end, we allowed that to happen by sitting deeper – and that’s not us.
“I said to Dan (Udoh), who dropped into midfield, to stay up front because they will keep more numbers back.
“It is common sense, a bit of cat and mouse, but you have to be brave.
“We don’t need to play better, we just need to take our chances and be more clinical.”
Filling in for Chesterfield boss Paul Cook, who was serving a touchline ban, head coach Gary Roberts hailed the character shown by the Spireites players.
He said: “We have to credit our boys, it’s a big night for us.
“We probably made the least amount of passes we’ve made in a couple of years, but I thought they stuck at it, they dug in, fought, and scrapped.
“We had to play the conditions and the pitch and I think we did that really well.
“Tonight we could not connect passes. We made 600 passes on Saturday. I think today it’ll be 200.
“We’re a team who want to pass through teams but we had to change our approach today.
“Eventually, we made a couple of passes, our full-back got on the outside and got a little bit of luck for the goal.
“You are never going to come here and play great football. We dug in, defended when we had to and nicked a goal at the end.”
