Gaffer calls for Stanley’s clinical edge
JOHN Coleman insists Accrington Stanley cannot keep blaiming ill-fortune for their contrasting home and away form.
The Reds have been impressive at the Wham Stadium this season and entertain Gillingham this weekend.
They head into the game on the back of a 4-0 thumping at Plymouth Argyle where, despite competing on an even footing for long stretches of the gane, the Reds were put to the sword by the home side’s clincal finishing.
They went a goal down against the run of play and looked the better team for long periods of the game – but Coleman said that was no consolation.
“That counts for nothing – the currency in football is results and goals and we’re sadly lacking away from home,” he said.
“We can’t keep blaming bad luck. We haven’t had any luck, but that’s immaterial, you can’t keep blaiming it. We are making silly mistakes and we’re being punished by good strikers. That’s been he story of our season away from home.
“It felt like a bit of deja vu. We’re going through this same thing and we’re blaming it on being away from home – maybe it’s coincidence, maybe it’s not, but we seem to find a way to give teams goals away from home and not take the chances we get.
“It’s a 4-0 and it sounds like a drubbing –and it is a drubbing, 4-0 is always a drubbing. Eleven v eleven, could you honestly say they were the better team? Far from it. They had a period of domination when we went down to ten and that’s our own fault for going down to ten
men, we’ve no-one else to blame but ourselves. But they scored the first, second and third goals totally against the run of play.
“We’ve managed to conspire to miss three glorious chances, all at crucial points of the game. Our decision making was poor at best.”
The Reds were already 3-0 down when goalkeeper Toby Savin was dismissed for a foul on Ryan Hardie.
“It was probably the right decision. It’s an error of judgement by Toby – between him and Mitch (Clark) one of them had to deal with it and we’ve managed to find a way to have a comical sending off.
“These lads don’t set out to make mistakes –
unfortunately they have made too many this season, so that just tells you we are not at the level we think we are or where we should be. Plenty of times we have got it right, so we know it’s in there for us to get it right and we have just got to keep plugging way.
“It’s difficult to take when you lose a game that you think you could possibly win – and I think we could have won the game.
“But if someone is streets ahead of you in terms of clincal finishing they are more likely to beat you.”
Harvey Rodgers was forced to make way for replacement keeper Liam Isherwood, who impressed Coleman.
“He made two brilliant saves. He was nervous, but he took some great catches as well. It was a very difficult situation for him and thankfully he stood up to the task,” said the Reds boss.
“I can’t fault the lads’ effort and we could have thrown the towel in there and got beaten by ten – but we didn’t, we tried to be brave and keep two up front but we have to snap out of this because it’s a recipe for disaster when you give stupid goals away, which we did, and we missed gilt-edged chances at the other end. We’ve got to stop that.
“Fair play to Plymouth, they are a good side, they’ve been on a good run and I think that was their fifth clean sheet on the bounce.
“You need a lot of luck to keep a clean sheet and how on earth they’ve kept a clean sheet on the day I don’t know,
“We created four takeable chances but that’s not down to Plymouth, that’s down to us not taking them.
“We set up a lot of their attacks in the first half through our sloppy play and the one thing I will say about Plymouth on the day, where they were streets ahead of us, they were clinical in their finishing.
“That was the difference – they were miles better at putting the ball in the net and taking the opportunities that came.”