JOHN Coleman said Stanley’s performance at Exeter City was ‘unacceptable’ and apologised to the fans who had made the long trek to St James Park.

The Reds slipped to their first defeat in six outings as they were beaten 2-0 by their promotion rivals - and Coleman said he had no complaints.

“They were better than us in every department,” he said. “I don’t necessarily subscribe to the fact that they are better than us and the league table would say that they’re not but they applied themselves really well, far better than us.

“Going forward and they were far better than us defensively.

“We made a host of mistakes both in attack and defence and the only surprise was it took them that long to punish us.

“But we can have no complaints about the result.

“I was very disappointed with performance and can have no complaints with the result and the better team on the day won the game.

Coleman hopes the lack-lustre display was just an off day and said: “We have got to hope it is.

“I feel for the fans who paid a lot of money and gave up a lot of their time because what we served up in the first half was not acceptable.

“And so I would like to apologise to them.

“I don’t think the players set out to play like that but there was just a lack of cohesion, lack of urgency. We looked very lethargic and maybe it’s a culmination of a lot of games catching up on us, I don’t know.”

Exeter boss Paul Tisdale blasted his players after last Tuesday’s 3-1 defeat at Crawley and got the right response - now Coleman is hoping for a similar outcome at the Wham Stadium

He said: “Their manager said he hasn’t been as disappointed with a performance from his team as he got last week for three or four years, I’ve got the same thing served up to me.

“It was like we took his place.

“He got a response from his players, let’s hope I get a response from my players.”