Chesterfield boss Paul Cook described Oldham Athletic's win at the Technique Stadium as "very, very fortuitous".

Latics found themselves with plenty of defending to do after Devarn Green fired them into an early lead with his first goal, in his first start, since signing almost a month ago.

And they had Magnus Norman to thank for a magnificent goalkeeping display to preserve the clean sheet, which condemned the Spireites to their fifth defeat in eight winless games.

"This is probably the worst run of my managerial career, I would suggest," said Cook, whose side started the day in fourth place in the National League table.

"I came back here to help the club, and I feel they're so close to being a good team, but there's something missing, and we've got to make sure that we find that something.

"We're in a process at the minute where it's not going our way, there's no hiding place from that. We lack goals in the team at the minute, and that's an important factor for any team, but we're probably at the minute going through that spell of different combinations every week. I feel that's not the way forward, I feel we need a combination that we trust and rely on.

"Unfortunately we've missed Armando Dobra today who's a big player for us, he would have played a part, but that seems to be the pathway for us where we regularly have these players missing.

"Unfortunately we've got to take our medicine, we've got to feel the pain - that's football, football's painful - and then when you do get your success you won't remember the pain, you'll remember the success."

Cook added: "We've had 25-26 attempts at goal, we probably had six clear-cut chances and it's probably a stage where I don't feel the lads are doing anything wrong on the pitch other than the outcome, and the outcome is the most important thing, don't get me wrong, because you can't just keep losing games and say everything's good, but I've been around football long enough to know if we keep playing like that we're going to be fine.

"We do now and again give teams a leg up and give them something to cling on to, but we played really well at times, especially in the first half.

"I understand the frustration (of the fans) because the longer we go without scoring that edginess comes onto the pitch, and we're trying to get the lads to be patient and create clear-cut chances that you take. Unfortunately today we created them but we didn't take them.

"I don't know how many goal attempts Oldham have had but they've certainly left here with a very, very fortuitous win, let's have it right."