Jimmy Bell says the challenge is for Stanley’s strikers to now replicate their goalscoring form to persuade boss John Coleman that the transfer market doesn’t have to be the answer to their previous woes in front of goal.

Stanley had averaged a goal a game for their opening 17 League One matches but fired in seven in the win over Bolton, with three strikers, and last season’s top scorer Sean McConville, on target.

The Reds had gone four league fixtures - and the FA Cup defeat to Crewe - without troubling the scorers, with Bell believing a greater hunger was needed to find the net more regularly.

He was impressed with the ruthlessness of his attackers, with Colby Bishop and Offrande Zanzala scoring twice, with Dion Charles rounding off the rout in which McConville also bagged a brace. And the assistant manager hopes the penny has now dropped and the strikers can find a level of consistency to help the Reds moving away from the bottom third of the table.

Bell said: “When your strikers are in that vein of form, anything can happen. That’s in our players, we just haven’t show it enough.

“To score seven goals against a very good Bolton team, who were on a rich vein of form, was outstanding. 

“It shows it’s in the players, getting it out of them is another thing. I’ve been trying my best to get the strikers to realise it’s about scoring goals, not having three or four touches in the box, but one or two touch and scoring goals.

“That’s what wins you games, the game will never change, and that’s why strikers get paid the money right the way through to the top level.

“Once the penny drops with them I think we’ve got three or four really good strikers.

“We were scratching our heads before the Bolton game thinking ‘we need strikers’. I wasn’t too sure because I’d seen ability in them to suggest they are good enough. They have to show that consistently.”

Bell says it is the job of the coaching staff to get the maximum out of the options available, with Bishop topping the scoring charts with nine, while Charles and Zanzala have five and four respectively.

“That’s down to me, John (Coleman) and John (Doolan) to get that out of them. How we do that is another question,” he explained

“We have to emphasise that goals win games and we hadn’t done that. To score seven goals, hopefully we can carry that on.

“You have to make them hungry, they have to realise that scoring goals is the be all and end all for them. If you can couple that with hard work defensively then you’ve got a chance.

“We’ve created enough chances to win every game we’ve played this season and that’s been our downfall. We haven’t scored enough goals, or enough goals, culminating in five-and-a-half games without one

“The job we have is to treat them a little bit differently, get them on edge, and let them know that they have to take a higher percentage of chances and be ruthless in front of goal.

“Watching the Bolton game again I thought they were, the hunger, desire, the movement, everything about it was absolutely fantastic.

“We have to replicate that from now until the end of the season and we have enough strikers to rotate if they’re not doing it.

“We’ve said before now and January they have to prove they are up to this league and score more goals.

“That’s been a big thing for us.”