ACCRINGTON Stanley ace Sean McConville is confident the club will turn their fortunes around - just as they did last season.

The Reds were beaten 3-0 by Southend United on Saturday with the defeat the fourth on the bounce in League One.

John Coleman's side endured a similar run of poor form 12 months ago when they lost four on the spin in League Two but the Reds rallied and charged to the title just a matter of months later.

While McConville is not predicting a championship challenge this time around, he is confident that the Reds can respond ahead of the trip to struggling Plymouth Argyle on Saturday.

Speaking after the defeat at Roots Hall, the 29-year-old said: "We are creating chances and we are playing well.

“If you take last season, when we were on a bad run, we were playing poorly, but we went back to the drawing board, played Grimsby and were solid, played off second balls and won.

“This time, we don’t feel we have to do that because we are comfortably the better team in games, we are creating chances.

“On performance levels, we are playing well but we are not picking up any points and it’s tough.

“People who are watching us would say we are playing well but results wise it’s not good enough. I think it will eventually turn with our performances and that’s what we are hoping.”

McConville believes the step up in standard is having an impact on Stanley but believes the Reds possess the necessary quality to compete at this level.

"“In this league, teams at the top end are more clinical," added the wideman. "If this game (Southend) had been in League Two, we could have created chances and missed, gone in 0-0 at half-time if they haven’t taken their two and teams in League Two tended not to as much.

“But at this level you have prolific strikers, you have very good players, who are sharp, they don’t miss chances.

“That’s what we need to get into our forward players, be more ruthless, and as a senior player I believe it will change, if we keep creating them.”

The Reds had a number of chances in the first half at Southend but were made to pay for their profligacy in defeat.

“We were the better team here comfortably, we created five great chances in the first half and we haven’t taken them,” added McConville.

“Their first two chances they had, they scored.

“It’s strange at the moment. We are playing well but we aren’t scoring and we are conceding silly, soft goals.

“We have got to work on taking those chances as forward players and be ruthless and, as a defensive unit, the goals we have conceded yesterday and the chances we have given up are sloppy at best and it’s not good enough.

“We are having bad luck, it plays a massive part in football, but we have got to take luck out of the equation and be better technically in front of goal.

“We were looking at the play-offs and everything looking rosy and then all of a sudden a couple of defeats and we are looking over our shoulders.”