Coley eyes two more additions
JOHN Coleman will ring the changes again for Accrington Stanley as they return to League One action this weekend with the visit of Gillingham to the Wham Stadium.
The Reds enjoyed a 2-0 win at Charlton Athletic last Friday in what was their first game for almost three weeks having seen fixtures against Sunderland and Portsmouth postponed, the former due to a Covid case among the Black Cats’ staff and the latter due to a frozen pitch.
Colby Bishop bagged a brace at The Valley before the Sky TV cameras as Stanley kept up their pursuit of promotion, the win initially lifting them into fourth place, although they dropped back down to fifth after Saturday’s round of games.
Still, Coleman’s men are just four points off the automatic promotion spots with two games in hand on second-placed Hull.
On Tuesday, in the last 16 of the Papa John’s Trophy, the Reds chief made 10 changes to his side as Stanley suffered a 4-0 defeat at Lincoln City.
While it was disappointing for Coleman, the priority is the league campaign.
Having seen loanee Tom Allan return to parent club Newcastle United this week, Coleman is in negotiations with a couple of potential new signings and could have one or two over the line in time for the weekend’s game against the Gills.
“I’m hoping to get one or two in before Saturday but we’re still working on it and it’s tough negotiations – but we’ll only sign the ones we believe are the right ones,” he said.
“Focusing on the league is all we can do now, but we do have a lot of games so it could prove to be a blessing in disguise (exiting the Trophy). I did want to win the game at Lincoln, unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be but you can’t win every game you play.
“It’s so difficult to make so many changes and a lot of them were enforced and we had to get some minutes into some legs. Lincoln had a stronger side out than us and it showed. No disrespect to the lads who came in, but you want to put them in in small numbers rather than big numbers and when you make eight or nine changes it’s difficult to get a handle on how you’re going to play.
“Although we work a lot on shape, it’s difficult to settle in and a lot of lads hadn’t played for a while and it showed Lincoln were stronger, sharper and fitter than us on the night and good luck to them.
“There were a lot of things that went against us on the night and sometimes the opposition are just better and you have to hold your hands up, dust yourselves and go again, which we will do on Saturday.”
Youngsters Harry Perritt and Zehn Mohammed
were among the starters for the Reds at Sincil Bank, and Coleman believes the competition is an ideal bedding ground for developing talent.
“It was good to get players through from the Academy playing a game and one thing we don’t do is deny these lads an opportunity, plenty of other teams don’t even fill the bench with youth team players and I never understand that,” he said.
“You are giving some of these lads the night of their lives and perhaps Lincoln could have put a couple out when the game was won, but it’s not for me to decide what other teams do.
“We just have to focus on Saturday now, which is our main aim.”