Coleman: All about the players

Accrington boss John Coleman said it felt like he had never been away after seeing his side win a nine-goal thriller at Northampton.

The Cobblers hit five themselves in midweek but this time it was Stanley who emerged with a 5-4 victory at Sixfields, where on-loan Blackburn midfielder John O'Sullivan bagged a brace, as did Robert Atkinson, while another player signed on-loan in midweek, West Ham striker Sean Maguire, also got on the scoresheet. Ivan Toney, with two goals, Marc Richards and Darren Carter replied for Northampton but could not deny the visitors all three points. Coleman said: "It felt like I'd never been away. I have to say it is tinged with a little disappointment because of the way we finished the game but the lads were fantastic out there. "We want them to play a certain way, we went into this game with a very specific game plan and the players bought into it. "Sometimes you'll come unstuck playing that way and we know we're not going to be able to score five goals away from home every week. "The players really put a shift in and when you get something through hard work rather than from someone giving it to you, it tastes all the more sweeter. "Forget about me, this was about the players, they worked hard and they deserved the win. But I'm fed up with this club being 'little old Accrington' because we're a Football League club on merit." Disappointed Northampton boss Chris Wilder said: "We had key players missing on Tuesday, so I can't use that as an excuse, and we had good enough players on the bench. I'm hurting and so are the players, but it must have been even worse for the supporters. "Every time they saw us get back into the game, we conceded again. You've got to attack as a team ,which we did well again, but you also defend well as a team, which we didn't. "We'll have to look how we set the team up because we can't concede five goals at home, especially from set pieces. You cannot concede five goals and expect to get anything from a game. "You have to look at games individually, we scored five on Tuesday but that's history, and we've conceded five today so that's what I need to address this week in training. "To score five is great but we were unable to kick on from that which is disappointing, and the manner of the goals we conceded was even more disappointing. "We're still fifth in the table and I would have settled for that at this stage of the season. We're in a decent position but we can't afford to become a yo-yo side if we want to get success."