Coleman likes what he sees from Baker-Richardson and Bishop

Posted Sunday, August 18, 2019 by PA

Accrington boss John Coleman said the combination of Courtney Baker-Richardson and Colby Bishop could be key this season, after the pair helped snatch a 1-1 draw at AFC Wimbledon.

Luke O’Neill put the Dons ahead after 42 minutes when his curling cross was deflected into his own net by Stanley centre-half Ross Sykes and things got worse for the visitors when Zaine Francis-Angol was sent off for a second booking on 61 minutes.

But summer signing Bishop latched on to Swansea loanee Baker-Richardson’s cross three minutes later to help Accrington claim their first point of the season and leave Coleman excited by his new young stars.

“It’s a great goal,” he said. “Courtney has got into a great area then he’s fizzed a lovely ball in.

“We’ve been hammering on to Colby to get across his man in the box and he did that here.

“Those two are getting better every game, they’re working well together and that’s promising.

“Our lads showed a lot of character. A point was the least we deserved and on another day we could have won.”

Coleman continued: “Wimbledon started really strongly – I think they had five corners in the first few minutes – but we knew they’d be right at us, we knew they’d start like that.

“We were looking at our most comfortable when we conceded. We had a couple of decisions go against us which resulted in us going down to 10 men but, by the end of the game, I thought we were the team who were going to win it.

“We were putting corners in their box, we had free-kicks and we weren’t time-wasting by the corner flag. We weren’t here to see out the draw, that shows what the players are all about.”

Wimbledon, like their visitors, also picked up their first point of the season but boss Wally Downes was frustrated not to leave victorious.

He said: “I’m delighted we’ve got our first point of the season but disappointed we weren’t good enough to push on in the second half and get all three.

“When a team go down to 10 you feel you should press home that advantage. It was a bit of a soft goal to concede. It was poor defending.

“We played well in the first half but the disappointing thing was we didn’t emphasise that superiority into the second half.

“We should have circulated the ball better, we had opportunities to pass and play and make them run a bit more – and we didn’t.

“We were more direct in the first half because we thought we could turn their back four but we didn’t have the nous to pass the ball better in the second half. We ended up playing aimless balls when we should have been stretching their legs.”