JOHN Coleman believes his Accrington Stanley side's performances this season warrant them being in and around the play-offs.

The manager knows they have struggled to put the ball in the back of the net and this is why they are 17th in League One.

Goals have been flowing lately with 11 in their last two home league matches and they have a chance to 13th with a win at Doncaster Rovers on Saturday.

"It’s good when the ball goes in the net and we did play some good football, but we have played some good football in the past, but the ball hasn’t gone in the net," said Coleman.

"Goals aren’t a currency in football, and you can just see everyone’s confidence build up when we start scoring goals.

"The little flicks and back heels tend to come off, but when you’re struggling you don’t try them because you’re fearing the consequences. "It all goes hand in hand. It’d be easy then to lay the blame on the strikers for where we are in the league because I think we should be touching the play-offs with our performances this season, but we’re not and that’s because we haven’t put the ball in the net on a consistent basis.

"Now if you look at the goals scored, we’re in the top six from being near the bottom and that just shows you how quickly football can change.

"We’ve just got to maintain that change and that means by putting the ball in the back of the net on a regular basis."

Coleman wants his players to maintain the high level of performance they have reached in recent weeks and credits Mark Hughes for encouraging his team mates to keep these standards high.

"What’s great is that the players know that they’ve set standards.

"Mark Hughes is a big driver behind that, we’ve set some standards that we’ve got to try and surpass.

"We’ve got a healthy squad now, I can’t remember us winning two consecutive home games, but we’ve won three and had so many different players playing and that can bode well.

"Everyone knows I like a settled side, but we’ve got strong competition for places now and arguably our most consistent player over the last three years wasn’t playing and we still put in a performance like that with Sean McConville being out. "When you’ve got Joe Pritchard coming in and getting man of the match, they’re all pushing each other and that should lead you to an upturn in performance."