Chesterfield coach Gary Roberts blamed “moments of madness” from red-carded Lee Bonis for costing his side victory as they had to settle for a 1-1 League Two draw against struggling Harrogate.
Bonis, who had given the hosts a first-half lead, was sent-off in the 59th minute following a second booking in the space of a few minutes, while Tobias Brenan scored the equaliser, six minutes from time.
Roberts said: “More than frustrating. Everything going to plan and moments of madness from our striker has cost us the points – that’s how basic it is.
“We’ve missed enough chances in a game again. You’ve seen us, not ruthless enough in the boxes.
“When you’re down to 10 men for 35 minutes, 40 minutes, whatever the added-time was, you’re going to be suspected of conceding chances and conceding goals.
“We’ve got to that point again where we’ve gone to jump in. We’ve missed that and today for probably other reasons, because I thought the performance was good up to the sending off.
“We looked a little bit leggy, a little tiny bit, just after half-time. We were making four positive subs to take the game away from Harrogate.
“There were four powerful subs. (Ryan) Stirk, (Armando) Dobra, (James) Berry and Will Grigg, who would have brought energy, quality and to get sent off like that, it’s stupid.
“It’s stupid on Lee’s part and there’s not much in it, but they’re the rules and it’s cost us two points today.”
Harrogate manager Simon Weaver insisted he was confident of getting at least a draw going into the game.
He said: “I don’t think many people outside our changing room are backing us to get a point here today but we were in a confident mood going into the game and wanted at least a point obviously, and we’ve achieved that.
“I know we started slowly – which is the disappointing aspect of the afternoon – where it was a little bit timid and it was all about getting on the front foot.
“But credit to them, they’re a good team. They pinned us back in the first 15 minutes and succumbed to a goal, but we improved after and the reaction was good.
“I thought we just gave the ball away needlessly at times and it made us look a bit flaky.
“It was far removed from the same team, the same inscriptions. It was far removed from that first 15 minutes of last week when we were really pushing hard and forward.
“We just got a little bit sloppy in possession and the turnovers went their way and resulted in us being pinned back and we have to learn from that.”
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