Keith Alexander was as disappointed as anyone to lose Saturday's game to Port Vale to the weather as he team now looks forward to a tough run of games in the remainder of the month.

"January is always a tough month and this year especially so," explained Keith. "We head to Aldershot next Saturday who have a very good record at home before we entertain the top two sides Brentford and Wycombe at the Moss Rose. And we finish the month off with another tough trip to Rotherham."

"They're four tricky matches and it would have been nice to have played yesterday and hopefully have picked up a win to set us up for the challenge ahead. But in the end the only winner was the weather."

"Thankfully it seems set to improve this week. Its had a major disruption on our preparations for games since the turn of the New Year as we haven't been able to train on grass so far. But I suppose we're not alone on that one."

"We will of course be missing the services of Martin Gritton who joined Chesterfield in the week. I am sure his departure will have provoked a lot of debate, and in many quarters I suspect the club will be accused of a lack of ambition.

"Whilst understanding how that opinion was arrived at, a more balanced view is needed in my eyes. The January Transfer Window, more so than the one in August, has had an extremely unsettling effect on the game in my opinion. I am not a fan of the system at all as it puts a lot of pressure on clubs. Martin's departure is a big loss as he has been a key player for us of late. But it was only a matter of months ago that he was getting a fair bit of stick from certain sections of the fans. Had he been sold then I don't think too many people would have batted an eyelid."

"You have to make a judgement call and in my view the deal was best in both the interests of the club and the player. There aren't many clubs who would be willing to offer a two and a half year deal to a player who celebrated his thirtieth birthday last June. But Martin deserves his chance at Chesterfield. He's a good professional and we of course wish him well."

"As one of the better paid professionals on the books, his departure of course gives me more scope to bring in a few of the players I have been looking at. Hopefully there will be more news on that in the near future."