JOHN Coleman has urged his Accrington Stanley side to maintain high standards and work ethic, because promotion will not be handed to them on a plate.

The Reds are riding high in League Two, with a recent winning streak firing them up to second.

Coleman admits confidence is coursing through the camp. But the Stanley boss knows it can quickly transfer to cockiness, and is determined his players will not cross that line.

“You’ve got to be mindful of the fact you don’t get too flippant about it and you think it’s just going to happen because you’ve been winning games. You’ve got to play well to win games,” said the Reds’ chief, who felt his players rode their luck for a spell in Tuesday night’s win over Crewe.

“You can get away with it now and again.

“I think I can probably count on two hands since 1999 the amount of times we’ve played badly and won, so generally when we play well we have more chance of winning. We generally don’t get away with it too many times.

“I can’t count on probably 2,000 hands the amount of times we’ve played well and lost, so we have to get it right. We have to play well.”

Ahead of this afternoon’s game at rock bottom Barnet, Coleman urged his players to stick to what they have been good at in order to be in the automatic promotion places with 14 games to go.

“We’ve got to be mindful of the fact that we don’t tense up in games because the season’s coming to a close and we’re in such a good position,” he said. “We’ve got a certain way of playing and we’ve got to stick to that, and the players know they’ve got to stick to that. When we do we’re formidable, we don’t give up chances.”

He added: “We’ve got a method of playing and if we stick to that it can be very successful. You won’t win every game, but in the main if you concentrate on what you’re doing and try to do that to the best of your ability, added to that the tremendous amount of work rate which we’ve normally got, the natural ability will then add the sprinkling of game changing opportunities and you’ve got good chances of winning games.

“We’ve got good players who are the envy of a lot of teams.”