Stanley sunk at home by Toney treble

SKY BET LEAGUE ONE STANLEY....................... 0 PETERBOROUGH ........ 4

ACCRINGTON Stanley suffered a heavy home defeat in their final game of 2018 as they were emphatically beaten by Peterborough United.

Ivan Toney scored a hat-trick for the visitors, while Rhys Bennett also found the net to end Accrington’s run of two straight victories and condemn the Reds to defeat.

Stanley manager John Coleman was extremely unhappy with his team’s defending in the game, and also revealed the angry comments a supporter gave to him following the match.

“We’ve got to defend better. Peterborough were better than us on the day but they weren’t much better than us. When you see the video again a lot of it was our own doing, problems we caused ourselves,” he said.

“You can go on about ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ all day long, but we didn’t play well enough and we got exactly what our performance deserved.

“One of our fans shouted at me afterwards, saying ‘that’s disgusting Coleman.’

“They pay their money and they’re entitled to their opinion, but I think he must have a short memory because if you look at our record in 2018 we’ve had an unbelievable year.

“Not everything is going to be plain sailing and if you’re a supporter then you should support. I’ll do everything I can to make sure we don’t turn in too many performances like that this season, which we haven’t done in 2018 – we’re the sixth best team this year over all of the leagues.

“You can’t be negative and dwell on what’s going wrong because all of a sudden an air of negativity comes around the squad. Players play within themselves and focus on what they can’t do rather than what they can do.

“You’ve got to be bright, you’ve got to be intelligent and we’ve got to make sure that the mistakes that we’ve made don’t happen again.”

Peterborough took the lead in the 19th minute of the game when Toney got his first goal of the afternoon, heading home after getting on the end of Marcus Maddison’s free kick.

Stanley were unable to seriously test the opposition goal in the first half and Peterborough made them pay when they got their second just before the interval, with Toney rounding Accrington goalkeeper Connor Ripley and firing into an empty net.

The Reds would lucky to avoid conceding a third just moments later when Toney was in again, but this time Ripley made a good save to push his effort onto the post and ensured it remained 2-0 at half-time.

Coleman’s men were better after the break, and substitute Offrande Zanzala had their first major chance of the half when he forced a good save out of Conor O’Malley.

The hosts weren’t being clinical with their chances though, and Peterborough showed them how to do it when they netted a third just after the hour mark. Maddison’s free-kick hit the crossbar, but Bennett was on hand to head in the rebound.

It had been a dominant display from Peterborough, and Toney ensured he would have the final say when he completed his hat-trick on 85 minutes.

The striker took advantage of disruption in the Stanley defence by scoring with a header from close range to get his 16th goal of the season and make the final score 4-0 on a miserable afternoon for Accrington.