JOHN Coleman is desperate to end Stanley's goal drought after the Reds failed to score for the fifth straight league game in Tuesday's stalemate at Gillingham.

The point leaves Accrington 15th in the League One table ahead of Saturday's home game with promotion-chasing Blackpool.

The Reds have managed just 26 goals in their 27 third tier games this season. Only bottom of the table AFC Wimbledon have scored fewer.

Billy Kee was the last Stanley man to find the net in the league in the 2-1 Boxing Day win over Shrewsbury Town and since then Coleman's men have gone 519 minutes without scoring.

Kee did net in the FA Cup win over Ipswich Town earlier this month but the Stanley boss knows his side must cure their goal shortage.

He has added Paul Smyth and Luke Armstrong to his ranks in January to swell his attacking options and hopes that once the Reds break their barren spell, the goals will flow.

"We just need to get a goal, that is five games without a goal in the league and we have never done that before," said Coleman.

"We just need to get one and then hopefully it will be like buses and it will be two.

"We maybe need a little bit more composure, we are maybe just choosing the wrong option.

"We have to get ourselves into situations into where luck favours you. We have to get more balls in the box and get more bodies into the box and hopefully make more chances and take those chances."

Coleman was relatively pleased with what he saw on Tuesday night from his side at Priestfield.

"It was a hard fought point, it could have gone either way," he said. "They started better than us, pushed us back in the first 15 minutes and then we warmed into the game.

"We manage to exploit the space we created in midfield and we got at them time and time again.

"Then in the second half we lost our way a bit and they got a head of steam up, weathered that and came strong again and in the end I felt we should have won it. We had a couple of great chances that we didn't take."

The Reds made a flying start to the season following promotion from League Two last season and were among the play-off contenders in the opening weeks of the campaign.

Their form has dropped off in recent weeks and they are now only five points clear of the bottom four, albeit with at least one game in hand on the nine sides below them.

Coleman wants to look up the table but knows it would be a successful season if the Reds were able to maintain their League One status heading into the final 18 games of the campaign.

"We have got a tough task on our hands to consolidate," he added. "I always think consolidation is the thing you look back on, you don't set out to consolidate. "We have got to get points on the board and start scoring goals and you only do that by working hard, myself included, we all all have to step up to the plate and do what is necessary to get over the line."