THE differing form of both sides is of no concern to John Coleman ahead of Stanley’s trip to Rochdale.

Just a place and a point separates the teams as 19th hosts 18th in League One this afternoon.

But the Reds head to Spotland having lost just one of their last nine in all competitions with Brian Barry-Murphy’s men without a win in eight.

Dale’s last win came 3-0 at Southend United on the last day of August but Coleman insists that counts for little on the day and is looking for a better return than last season where his side lost home and away.

“It doesn’t matter how the opposition are playing,” said Coleman.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say that Rochdale are on a bad run, they’re playing okay.

“If you’d have watched the second half against Wimbledon (a 3-2 defeat last Saturday), then there was only one team in it for big periods.

“I know this won’t be plain sailing. We feel as though they beat us last season home and away and we dominated both games, but we didn’t win.

“You can argue that form is irrelevant, it’s who puts the ball in the net and who keeps it out.

“We’ll go into it thinking we have to improve, and we are improving. We’ll be wary of the threat they pose.”

With four draws and two wins from their 11 games, Coleman believes his side are better than their early league position suggests.

He knows however that his side need to start getting over the line in more games.

“We need more wins on the table,” the Reds boss said.

“At some point we’ve got to try and buck that trend and you only do that by winning games. Every game in this league, either team is capable of winning.

“The ones who are more consistent will take their chances and win them. it’s quite simplistic.

“We probably should be six or seven places higher than we are and probably at least three of them were out of our hands and stolen from us. You can only govern what you do.”