Reds boss won’t get carried away
JOHN Coleman takes his yong Accrington Stanley side to AFC Wimbledon tomorrow looking to avoid a third successive League One loss.
The Reds followed a narrow defeat at Burton with a 4-1 loss against Oxford at the Wham Stadium last weekend in a game that turned against them with just 15 minutes remaining.
Ryan Cassidy had just levelled the contest from the spot on 72 minutes when the home side conceded a bizarre own goal, Mark Hughes’ clearance striking the back of Joe Pritchards and ricocheting into the net.
And Coleman felt that was followed by an equally bizarre decision to dismiss Dion Charles after a melee in the Oxford penalty area.
The ten men of Accrington shipped two more late goals to give the scoreline an imbalanced look and leave manager Coleman frustrated – but far from forlorn.
“It’s a long season and we’re not getting carried away,” he insisted.
“I wasn’t carried away when we beat Peterborough. The two games that we’ve lost could have gone either way – Saturday certainly wasn’t a 4-1. But things like that happen in football and you just have to take it in your stride.
“I was disappointed with our overall performance and obviously I’m devastated by the result – I don’t think the result was a true reflection of the game. The game hinged on a bizarre goal, the kind you only see once every two or three seasons. Unfortunately it happened to us and came at a time when they didn’t look like scoring, didn’t look threatening and we were in the ascendency having just got back into the game.
“We go back into the game and then there’s a bizarre sending off that nobody knows what for!
“It never ceases to amaze me some of the decisions that get made but you have just got to live with it because it’s a long season and things go for and against you. On the day, everything that could go against us went against us.
“There were two handballs in the first half – one was given and one wasn’t! Two identical situations. When you get things like that you just get a little bit frustrated but you can’t let it get you too down.
“We know there are areas we need to improve in and we are working towards that. It’s a young team and a little bit naive at times but I think we will get better the more we work on it.”
Coleman said Charles had explained his version of events surrounding the sending off and had reports from two people watching the game on TV.
He was going to watch the video of the game before deciding what to do next.
“I’ve had an explanation off Dion and I’ve had a call off two people who watched it on TV and they both said they didn’t see anything,” he said. “From what we can gather the keeper has dropped the ball, made an attempt to go for the ball but got nowhere near it, the keeper screamed and there was a lot of pushing and shoving and the linesman has made the decision, the referee hasn’t seen it from what I can gather.
“The reports are coming back that Dion raised his foot in a dangerous manner and that’s led to ‘he stamped on his head.’ I know Dion quite well and I don’t think he’d stamp on anyone’s head – but I could be wrong, I’ll see it and if it is wrong we will punush him heavily and if he’s not wrong we will appeal.”
Coleman’s side had fought evenly with Oxford in a first half of few chances – but the Reds were on the back foot after shipping a soft goal just before the break.
“It was a poor goal,” said Coleman. “They threw a ball down the line, Mark (Hughes) read it but got a bit of a bad ricochet, the lad stood on the ball and managed to go through Mark’s legs – they pull the ball across the goal and it’s a scramble into the net.
“You don’t want that to happen but it did happen and we had to respond, which we did in the second half, we took the game to them. We pinned them back and had a couple of long-range shots and were putting balls into the box and asking questions.
“We got what was rightly a penalty and then when you think you are going to go on to win the game, or certainly not lose it, you have a bizarre own goal.
“I didn’t think either side were good in possession but I felt we were below our standard.
There’s no getting away from that, we have to be better and we’re working towards that. We changed the system a little bit (at half time) and we were better for that – we passed it better and showed more urgency and that’s no disrespect to the two lads who came off. We had to make a change and we did.
“We have to work to get better and it’s an ongoing push – every week we seem to lose a key player. We lost Tariq (Uwakwe) for Saturday, we lost Mo (Sangare) the week before ... hopefully we won’t lose Dion for nexzt weekend. But we will just keep battling away, we are a young side and I’m sure once it all settles down we’ll be okay.”