ACCRINGTON Stanley manager John Coleman outlined his frustrations as his side failed to respond when they went a goal behind.

Stanley lost 1-0 at home to play-off hopefuls Coventry City and Coleman said his team ‘need to improve.’

The Reds had a chance to score in the first minute of the match, Coleman believes the game would have been different.

Coleman thinks Coventry could make the play-offs.

“It’s difficult, the conditions were difficult for both team. They had a good side, they passed it well,” said Coleman.

“They didn’t really hurt us and their keeper didn’t have much to do in the game.

“If Sean hits the target with the free kick in the first half then we’re going in 1-0 up.

“We said we had to play game more in their half at the break, but we didn’t.

“We’ve countered on them, we were breaking on them - Dan’s lost the ball on the half way line and they’ve countered the counter.

“We’ve lost a couple of tackles and the lad’s stuck the ball in the net. That’s the difference in the teams.

“They passed it a little bit better than us, we got a bit desperate and tried to pass it longer. They made changes.”

Stanley’s best chances came in the first few minutes of the game and Coleman believs this oculd have been a turning point.

“It would have been a different game. We have to be able to respond and we didn’t, we didn’t respond in the second half.

“They’ve won the game because they’ve scored the goal from our mistake on the half way line.

“If Dan gets enough contact on the ball then it goes to Jordan Clark and we’re breaking on them instead of them breaking on us.

“That’s the fine lines in football. We’ve got to be better, we’ve got to improve.

“If we don’t then we’re in for a long, hard slog until the end of the season.”

The Reds manager let his players know after the match that their performance wasn’t good enough.

“We didn’t create anything, it wasn’t a kitchen sink job - I don’t know what it was,” added Coleman.

“We’ll have to improve on that, we’ll look back at it with the players.

“We had a good chat in there, the players know that isn’t acceptable.”

Coleman believes Coventry may have enough to break in to the play-off places.

“We were speaking about that in there, they will believe they’ve got enough for the play-offs,” said Coleman.

“They’ve got a good team, in good form - unbeaten in five. They play some good football, the probably played better at Luton.

“There was nothing in the game today, it could have gone either way.

“Whoever scored the first goal was going to win this match.”