Bogey side sink
SKY BET LEAGUE ONE ROCHDALE ....................... 2 STANLEY........................... 1
ACCRINGTON Stanley suffered their fifth league defeat of the season after they were beaten away from home against Rochdale.
Two goals from Ian Henderson either side of halftime was enough to condemn Stanley to defeat, despite The Reds being the better side throughout and scoring a brilliant goal through Joe Pritchard.
The result saw Stanley drop to 20th place in League One, two points above the relegation zone, and boss John Coleman said Dale striker Ian Henderson was the difference on the day.
“We gave it a good go, we tried out best. We were undone by someone who was a better finisher than us, that’s the harsh reality of it,” he told the club’s official website.
“Ian Henderson’s a good finisher at this level and he gobbled up two of the three chances that he had and sometimes you need a player who is like that. He’s been a top finisher all his career and he punished us today.
“You can have as much of the play as you want and you can dominate the game and have the chances, but if you don’t put the ball in the back of the net then you don’t win the game. We can have no complaints about not winning the game.
“If you look at chances created then we probably created far more chances than Rochdale, we possibly never worked their goalkeeper enough in the first half for the dominance that we had.
“I won’t have to tell Dimi he’s got to do better with the first goal, but regardless of whether he does better or not, we should follow Ian Henderson in. He’s a poacher and you don’t just let poachers run in on their own unopposed.
“You’ve got to give him credit for reading it and reading the shot and that the goalkeeper could parry it, so you’ve got to question our defenders for not following in.
“We’ve got to be adaptable and we are adaptable. One of the problems we had was Colby Bishop is not one hundred percent, Sam Finley definitely isn’t one hundred percent, how he got through that I don’t know.
“Jerome Opoku wasn’t one hundred percent, so we had a stage where we needed to make two substitutions in the last 10 minuetes and we’d already used two.
“So, we had to leave an injured player on which was Colby and ironically he should have scored. Callum Johnson damaged his groin, he’s had a scan and it’s not too serious but it as enough to keep him out.”
Stanley dominated proceedings for long periods of the first half, with Rochdale goalkeeper Robert Sanchez required to keep out Jordan Clark’s halfvolley.
Offrande Zanzala also went close as he was twice denied by defensive blocks from Paul McShane, while Sam Finley fired off target as Accrington continued to waste opportunities.
Rochdale made their opponents pay for their missed chances when they took the lead in the 40th minute. Stanley goalkeeper Dimitar Evtimov could only parry away Ollie Rathbone’s shot when he should have done better, with Ian Henderson firing the rebound into the back of the net to make it 1-0 at the break.
The Rochdale striker then doubled his side’s lead just four minutes into the second half, capitalising on a mistake from the Accrington defenders to slot the ball past Evtimov and get his second goal of the afternoon.
Stanley reduced the deficit thanks to a stunning strike from Joe Pritchard on 53 minutes, after his dipping, swerving effort from 30 yards flew into the net, but they couldn’t find an equaliser and fell victim to a 2-1 defeat.