Marcus Bignot accepted key first-team departures may have affected his Chester players as they suffered a 20th league defeat of the campaign at Sutton United.

Bignot saw top scorer Ross Hannah head out on-loan to Southport on the eve of the trip to Sutton, with the club needing to get the 31-year-old off their wage bill for the rest of the season due to the financial crisis Chester remain embroiled in.

The Blues are counting the cost of a major budget overreach last summer, and Bignot admitted his players may been distracted by Hannah’s exit as they struggled to get to grips with Paul Doswell’s league leaders, who led 2-0 at the break through Harry Beautyman and Byron Harrison.

“My man-management of these players has been more than I’ve ever had to man-manage during my time in management,” explained Bignot, who witnessed a second-half fightback including goals from James Akintunde and Harry White in Saturday’s 3-2 loss.

“Losing our top scorer, it’s going to affect them. But again, they’ve shown they keep getting back up despite all the knockdowns, they keep getting back up and they keep competing.

“That’s all we can ask as a football club and that’s all we want from them. They are going above and beyond certainly, it’s just disappointing we are not getting the results we want or we need. We’re going in the right direction though.”

Chester have suffered during a tough run of fixtures against promotion contenders of late, losing to Dover Athletic, rivals Wrexham and claiming a goalless draw with Aldershot Town prior to the narrow defeat at Gander Green Lane.

Bignot declared himself proud of the efforts of his side during such a challenging run, citing the fact just four of his starting line-up at Sutton were fully fledged members of the squad at the start of the campaign, owing to the club’s dire financial situation.

“I’m so proud of these players, they’ve been competitive,” he continued.

“Ok, we’re not getting the results and that’s hugely disappointing, I’m not going to lie.

“But look at the facts and we’re still able to remain competitive. We’ve had a hard run of fixtures against the top teams and we’ve remained competitive in all those games.

“That gives us great confidence moving forward with this group. With hard work and with help we’ll turn those ‘being competitive’ games into results.

“We couldn’t make that advantage count and we’re forced to go back to front, and when it keeps coming back, as a defender you start getting deeper, a reaction to that. The game was stretched first-half but we got that sorted at half-time and addressed that.”

“Sutton are near the top of the table, let’s not forget, and they know they’ve been in a game today.

“Our footballers weren’t on their game first-half, we will admit that. They are an honest bunch.”

On the defeat to Sutton, who sealed victory with a fine strike from Ross Stearn, Bignot added: “The second-half they did everything we asked of them. Their third goal takes a wicked deflection, leaves Andy with no chance. But the reaction was really positive.

“It was cruel blow to concede the third goal, against the run of play at that point. That could have easily deflated us, but we kept going, we persevered, got ourselves back in the game and we could have easily have come back from this with a point.

“Harry White has a great chance at the death, he’s hit the target that’s all you can ask. We had some good opportunities and we created some chances.

“It was our application which was different. Sutton pose a different problem, you’ve got to earn the right to play and we didn’t get it right in the first-half.

“Last week we hardly touched the ball. This week we wanted to get on the ball, but there’s a process which we never did.

“We earned that right second-half. We got on the ball, stopped them from playing and played the game in their half and we got our rewards.