JOHN Coleman hailed the team spirit within his Accrington Stanley camp as one of the key contributing factors in them winning the Nationwide Conference title and promotion back to the Football League last season.

This season, he is confident it will be crucial to their survival in League Two.

The Reds have struggled in the lower echelons of the table since November after seeing star players Gary Roberts and Ian Craney move to Ipswich Town and Swansea City respectively, following successful loan spells.

The threat of a points deduction looms over them following an FA charge for fielding ineligible players in three matches this season - a case they will fight on Friday.

But Coleman believes off-the-field issues have only served to further galvanise his troops in their battle against the drop.

And they have back-to-back wins for the first time since September, against Torquay United and Hereford United, to show for their efforts.

"In times of adversity you either go one of two ways.

"You either throw the towel in or maybe it causes division in the ranks, or you close ranks and you all pull together, and I'd like to think we're doing the latter at the moment," Coleman said.

"We have had some terrible luck, there's no getting out of that, we've had some bad injuries, losing your better players as well doesn't help.

"But I often only go on what outsiders comment on when they see my teams playing and no-one says we ever look like a team who's playing low on confidence.

"If we can keep that going from now to the end of the season and all the lads rally round each other I'm sure we'll get the required effort and result."

Earlier in the season, Coleman noted that neither he nor assistant Jimmy Bell had not finished in the bottom half of a table in their managerial careers.

That's a run that appears likely to end this season, but the resolute Scouser believes he will be stronger for the experience.

"It's something that we're not used to and something that's looming large and is probably going to happen but you can learn a lot from that," Coleman said.

"I've learnt a lot this season - as a manager you learn every day in this job, but I think you learn a lot more about how to cope with situations and I think I'll be better equipped to cope with any adversity that comes to us next year."

As for the relegation battle, he added: "A lot will depend on what other teams are doing. But every time you can get a win you can maybe ease the pressure off you and take away some of the tension.

"The ideal scenario would be to pull a few points clear from the second from bottom team and that's proving difficult at the moment, not just for us but for a few teams.

"Until you can do that I don't think you can relax."