ACCRINGTON Stanley manager John Coleman believes the standard in League Two has improved in recent years - even if he doesn’t think there is a standout side in this season’s fourth tier.

The Reds host Barnet tomorrow sitting in third place in the table but Coleman does not see too big a gulf between his side and their 20th placed visitors.

Indeed the Wham Stadium boss points to Stanley’s 2016-17 campaign as evidence as how quickly things can change.

The Reds have made their best Football League start to a season this time around with 29 points from 15 games.

A year ago they had taken 20 points from 14 games, only six shy of the total accumulated from the same number of matches this term, but a run of seven defeats in eight left Stanley in a relegation battle at Christmas before a turnaround of just two defeats in their last 18 games meant they only narrowly missed out on a play-off place come May.

As a result Coleman believes League Two is the most competitive of divisions.

He said: “We are not getting carried away with ourselves, we know that three or four bad results will see you plummet down the table and it is something we experienced around this time last year so we are mindful of that and it is something we have to guard against.

“You get cliches like taking every game as it comes and there is no easy game in this league.

“The fact is that those certain sayings are true and anyone who starts thinking they’ve arrived, certainly at this level, can quickly come down to earth with a bump and you can’t dismiss any team in this league. There used to be always games that you thought ‘if we don’t win this then there is not much hope for us.’ But those games are gone now, no team is going to roll over.

“They are all physically strong and well prepared and they know what to expect.”

And Coleman is anticipating a tight finish in a promotion race he wants his side to feature heavily in.

“I think it is wide open,” he added. “I think come the end of the season it will be even tighter than it was last year and there will be 14 teams in with a chance of going up and we have to make sure we are at the higher end where the consolation prize is a play-off place rather than the main aim.

“There is no real great side in our league but there is no dummy either. You have a lot of teams who are capable of winning games and a lot of teams who are capable of losing games.

“You just have to grind out results, be consistent and hope things go for you, concentrate for longer periods and see yourself through to wins.”