John Coleman to address Accrington defending after latest comeback victory

Posted Sunday, February 04, 2018 by PA

John Coleman was delighted with Accrington’s latest comeback – but knows they can not carry on giving teams a two-goal start.

For the second successive home match, Stanley fell 2-0 behind and then came back to win 3-2 thanks to a a Sean McConville double and a Billy Kee strike.

Stevenage, just like Port Vale a fortnight earlier, were shell-shocked by the McConville-Kee double act but Coleman does not want two-goal deficits to become commonplace.

He said: “I am delighted with the character of our comeback, I don’t think we deserved to go in 2-0 or even 2-1 down as we did.

“We gifted them the first goal and then were punished defensively for the second. It was two lapses of concentration which cost us.

“Give the lads their due they pushed on in the second half and showed a belief to win it. There were some big performances out there.

“However we can’t keep giving teams two-goal leads as we are giving ourselves a mountain to climb. This has to be addressed.

“If we can iron out these lapses of concentration then we know we will be up there, it’s in our own hands and we have got to rise to every occasion now.”

Matt Godden had given Stevenage a 14th-minute lead and Mark McKee struck a second seven minutes before half-time.

However McConville fired home a perfect free-kick on the stroke of half-time before Kee turned and fired home in the area from a short corner to make it 2-2.

Winger McConville lashed home the winner with 12 minutes left.

Stevenage boss Darren Sarll was gutted with the manner of the three goals conceded.

“The goals we conceded, it was absolutely scandalous,” said Sarll. “We should have controlled each of them but we didn’t deal with the situation.

“I thought we played well apart from those three lapses. We hit the post, had numerous chances and I thought we were terrific in the first half.

“The new lads – John Goddard, Luke Amos and Alex Revell – gave us a greater intensity and we controlled the game and well-marshalled their attackers but then we gave away three awful goals and that’s so disappointing. It’s criminal.

“There were positives to take from individual performances. We were the better side but you can’t concede goals like that and expect to win.”