“IT’S like a gambler being on a hot streak in Vegas, you want to play as many hands as possible,” John Coleman mused.

Right now the Accrington Stanley manager does not mind the volume of games given how well results are going.

The Reds are still playing catch-up after a coronavirus outbreak led to a two-week shutdown of the club.

There were six games in November after their return to action, while this afternoon’s trip to Wigan Athletic is the halfway point of an eight-game month.

But as they head to the DW Stadium looking to stretch an eight-game unbeaten run that includes six wins Coleman has no complaints.

“It’s going to be tough but there are other teams in the same boat as us. You get to the stage where when you’re doing okay you want to carry on playing,” said the Stanley boss, before volunteering a reality-check.

“But I’ve been in the game long enough to know that can quickly change and you can get to situations where you don’t know where your next point is going to come from so we’re certainly not getting carried away.

“We know we’ve done okay but we know we’re still a work in progress, there’s not even quarter of a season gone and players are still getting to know each other, players are still getting to know us, so hopefully we will improve and I think we need to improve.”

Coleman isn’t taking anything about Wigan’s situation for granted either.

The Latics, managed by former Reds player and manager Leam Richardson, won their first game in 14 attempts last weekend – coupon buster away to Sunderland. But it was not enough to lift them off the bottom of the table and ease the off-field troubles of a club in administration.

Coleman is full of empathy, having been in a similar situation himself when Stanley were threatened with winding-up order over an unpaid tax bill in 2011.

“You’re having to try to manage players where you don’t know if they’re going to get paid or not and it’s difficult,” he said.

“I’d had that on the back of 10 years of management, Leam’s been involved around the first team now for quite a while but when you’ve got to relay bad news and sometimes you’re not sure whether that bad news is true or not, it’s very very difficult. To keep them going the way they have done is all credit to them.”

He added: “There are plenty of clubs who are like that and football’s gone like that unfortunately.

“We’ve got to be thankful for the fact we’ve got an owner who is really clued in business wise and we both get along really well, neither of us want to try to stretch the club’s finances so it’s not as if I’m begging him to sign big players or big-money players.

“We realise where the club is at and how we want it to progress and a big part of that is the infrastructure, you’ve only got to look at the ground now, it’s a lot better than it was a couple of years ago and it will hopefully keep getting better.

“You should always try to grow a club and all credit to the chairman for doing that.”