JAMES Beattie insists he is not pressing the panic button over Accrington Stanley’s losing start to the season.

The Reds have slipped to 1-0 and 2-1 defeats and were thumped 4-0 by Shrewsbury in midweek after being reduced to 10 men with the sending off of goalkeeper Luke Simpson, while they also exited the Capital One Cup, despite a spirited fightback at Leeds United.

There will already be inevitable comparisons to last season, when Stanley went 12 league games without a win.

But Beattie insists the two situations are not the same, and that his squad is better equipped to cope with the rigours of League Two than 12 months ago.

“We are only three games in and there is nobody pushing any big red buttons at this moment in time, I’m certainly not, because of the belief that I have in myself and the believe that I have in the players,” he said ahead of tomorrow’s home game against newly promoted Luton Town.

“As I’ve said from the word go it’s all about the players. I do everything I can to try to ensure the players have the best of what I can get my hands on and that hasn’t changed. In fact since last year’s experience it’s been bolstered.

“This is a great group of lads first and foremost, but they’re very good players.

“It’s my job to pick them up after a defeat the other night, which I will do.

“We’ll write off the first half performance but the second half performance was much more what we’re about, dogged determination and a real resilience to not concede.

“If you say we lost the second half 1-0 with 10 men there are plenty of positives we can take.

He added: “Of course we were all bitterly disappointed after the game.

“But one of the things I’m talking to the younger lads about is developing their character and being able to process disappointment is part of that.

“We’ve watched the video, and then we’ll put it to bed.”