Chesterfield assistant manager Danny Webb insisted results are everything after a hard-fought 2-1 victory over rock-bottom Carlisle, who were reduced to 10 men in the first half.
Goals from Liam Mandeville in the 74th minute and Paddy Madden in the 82nd put the hosts in control before Joe Hugill pulled one back late on for Carlisle, which proved to be a mere consolation.
The visitors had first-half substitute Elliot Embleton sent off shortly before the break.
Webb said: “At this stage of the season, at any stage of the season, it’s about results. There was a bit of a nervy ending.
“Football has been, always will be, about results. You only tend to get them if you do the right things and for most of that game, we did.
“I don’t think I’m being too biased in saying that another day that could be five or six at some point. Fair play to them, they put their bodies on the line.
“They obviously pursued with a low block with 10 men against a team like ourselves who were very good at home and it looked like it was going to work for them.
“We kept doing the right things, even from corners. Their goalie (Gabe Breeze) was excellent so fair play to him, but we made him work so fair play to us as well.
“If you’d asked anyone before the game to take a 2-1, we would have taken it.”
Carlisle boss Mark Hughes was left to rue some ill fortune which disrupted his team.
He said: “It was really difficult for us this evening.
“Clearly we started off badly, we lost Matty Dennis in the pre-match warm-up. We had to make a change there and then Sean (Fusire, whose injury led to Embleton’s introduction) had to come off very early on.
“Elliot Embleton got sent off. I’ll have to look at that again, I’m not sure. I thought it was one of those unfortunate ones.
“It’s got the lad on the Achilles, a bit painful, but was it (enough) to send him off? I’m not sure, I haven’t seen a clear enough image of that.
“The referee and some of his officials weren’t great for us tonight, unfortunately.
“We had to make changes, had to change our shape, change personnel obviously right through the game.
“We just had to keep the energy, we had to take Georgie Kelly off at half-time because we needed the ability to make some choices in the latter stage of the game because we knew we’d tire, given we were down to 10 men.
“Almost everything that went against us happened tonight. If you haven’t got the tools to do the job, that’s where we were towards the end of the game.”
