John Coleman happy to end Accrington’s poor run of form against Cheltenham

Posted Sunday, September 18, 2022 by PA

Accrington boss John Coleman was relieved after his side ended a run of three successive defeats with a goal after 30 seconds securing a 1-0 win over Cheltenham.

Sean McConville got on the end of Shaun Whalley’s cross for a blistering start to the game for the Reds.

They had more chances with goalkeeper Luke Southwood denying Whalley and Harvey Rodgers hitting the woodwork.

Cheltenham were stronger after the break and it needed a goalline clearance from Doug Tharme to deny the Robins’ record goalscorer Alfie May a late equaliser.

“It’s not often you score after 25-30 seconds but we really should have put the game to bed with the glorious chances we created in the first half,” said Coleman, as Stanley celebrated their first home win of the season.

“Fair play to Cheltenham, they came at us in the second half and you don’t really want to be hanging on but I said to the lads before the game, it was a match we had to win whatever way we did it. There was some terrific defending and thankfully we saw the game out.

“We know we can hit the heights which we did in the first half, I would have liked us to attack more after the break, but Cheltenham pinned us in and you are always worried that not taking your chances can come back and haunt you but thankfully it didn’t.

“It is nice though when you get the points your hard work deserves as we have felt we deserved something from the previous three games.

“The only disappointment is the injury curse has struck again as we lost Harvey Rodgers, Tommy Leigh and Joe Pritchard during the game which is a worry.”

Cheltenham won in midweek over Cambridge and manager Wade Elliott was disappointed with his side’s first-half show at the Wham Stadium.

“We dipped under the standards we have set the last couple of weeks. We were caught cold and it was the worst possible start,” Elliott said.

“We put ourselves in a difficult position with our first-half performance and we were hanging on.

“We had to stay in the game and at half-time we had the opportunity to get our point across, reset and correct a few things.

“In the second half we were better but they had something to hang on to. We got some momentum but we didn’t have the right final pass or the ball didn’t bounce kindly for us to get back in the game.

“We have got to make sure we are at full tilt every minute of every game and make sure we do the basics, those are things we can control, and then we give ourselves the best chance to get something out of games.”