ACCRINGTON Stanley travel to Shrewsbury this afternoon knowing victory could make them late contenders for automatic promotion, but boss John Coleman is keen to concentrate on results rather than the league table.

Stanley moved back into the play-off places and up to fifth with a 3-0 win at home to Bradford on Saturday thanks to goals from Luke Joyce, Andy Procter and Sean McConville.

A number of results also went their way to leave them three points ahead of eighth-placed Gillingham and only four behind third place, currently occupied by Shrewsbury.

Graham Turner’s Shrews may have been the last side to win at the Crown Ground but Stanley, who have taken 29 points from their 11 home games since that January defeat, know that victory at the New Meadow in today’s 3pm kick-off could give them an astonishing chance of an automatic spot.

Coleman, though, wants his players to focus on the task in hand and not look too far ahead.

“We’ll just try to get nine points from the last three games and wherever that takes us, it takes us,” he said.

“There’s no point looking at what other teams are going to do because we can’t govern that.

“The only one we can have a bearing on is Shrewsbury on Monday and that’s what we’ll try to do.”

Holding midfielder Joyce, who declared himself ‘over the moon’ at scoring his first goal in 16 months on Saturday, said: “We’ve been on a good run for the past couple of months and Monday is a massive game now.

“We’re not going there looking for a point, we need to win the game and see if we can jump above Wycombe or get closer to Shrewsbury.”

Stanley raced into a 3-0 half-time lead on Saturday for the fourth time in their last eight home games and Coleman was delighted with the display, while playing down a second-half pushing match between team-mates Dean Winnard and Jimmy Ryan over defensive duties.

“That just shows that they care,” said the Reds boss.

“I think Dean was more concerned about keeping a clean sheet.

“We encourage them to be vocal with each other.

“Sometimes that can spill over but it’s quickly forgotten about.

“We scored three great goals and we passed the ball fantastically in the second half and relieved a lot of pressure.

“There were some great performances, you couldn’t single anyone out.

“I thought everyone was fantastic.”

But Coleman did pay particular tribute to Joyce, who has been in fine form since forcing his way back into the team in February.

“It was a great goal and he worked really hard to get back into the side,” said the Stanley boss.

“Fans have their own favourites about who they think should play but what the fans aren’t privy to is what we see every day in training.

“That’s what we base our decisions on in the main as to how we’re going to pick the side.

“Luke’s attitude doesn’t change whether he’s in the side or out of the side.

“As a manager that’s worth its weight in gold if you can have all your players like that.”

Stanley (possible): Alex Cisak; Dean Winnard, Phil Edwards, Sean Hessey, Joe Jacobson; Luke Joyce, Andy Procter; Jimmy Ryan, Ian Craney, Sean McConville; Terry Gornell.

Shrewsbury (possible): Ben Smith; David Raven, Ian Sharps, Shane Cansdell-Sherriff, Mat Sadler; Jon Taylor, Nicky Wroe, David Davies, Lionel Ainsworth; James Collins, Tom Bradshaw.