JOHN Coleman has described Accrington Stanley’s next batch of games as the most crucial of his Reds career.

Stanley will face four teams all vying for promotion, either automatically or via the play-offs, with home games against fifth placed Portsmouth, third placed Plymouth and ninth placed Wycombe all to play at the Wham Stadium following tomorrow's trip to AFC Wimbledon, who sit a point outside of the play-off places in eighth.

Having cut the gap to the automatic spots to just three points following an impressive comeback win at Oxford United, a point at home to Barnet and a narrow defeat at Yeovil on Tuesday has seen the gap to third widen to nine points in almost two weeks fourth placed Stanley.

Coleman set out to win promotion at the start of the season.

He insists he is not feeling the pressure to achieve his ambitions on a shoestring, and feels a lot can change again over the next fortnight with their quartet of crunch clashes.

But he refuses to declare tomorrow's trip to the capital a six-pointer.

“I don’t think so, no. There’s a lot of football to be played between now and the end of the season,” he said.

“The next four games we’re playing against teams who are either going for automatic or play-offs.

“They are pivotal. Probably the biggest bank of games in my career at Accrington.

“I’d like the picture afterwards to be clearer in our favour.

“But there are no six-pointers. You only get three points for every game you play."

Coleman was defiant when asked if he was feeling any internal or external pressure to maintain their promotion charge.

“No. We know we’re a good side,” said the Stanley boss. "I’d be disappointed, not so much for myself but for the players if we didn’t achieve what we set out to do, because we have got the tools to do it."

That is why he is confident of seeing a positive reaction from his players following Tuesday night’s 1-0 loss at Huish Park.

“We’ve got good players and we are making chances. Even on Tuesday we made four good chances but we make six or seven great chances every game, so there’s no reason why that should stop,” said Coleman, who took some solace from Northampton, Portsmouth, Plymouth and Leyton Orient all dropping points in midweek.

“In the cold light of day when the dust settles the damage wasn’t too great because only Oxford won in and around us.

“We’ve got away with it so to speak, but we won’t get away with losing too many times."

Despite seeing a five-game unbeaten come to an end, Coleman was pleased with his side’s overall performance, if not the result, but warned they would need to develop a more ruthless streak.

“We did certainly enough not to lose the game on Tuesday when you look back. We possibly could have taken a few more risks in the final third,” he said.

“We made about three or four decent chances to their one or two, but they were a bit more clinical.

“We’ve got to open up a little bit more. We’re controlling games far too easily, and it was too easy the other night.

"They hadn’t laid a glove on us in the first half. It would have been a classic away performance if Billy Kee’s header hadn’t have been saved by the keeper.

“We’ve got to step it up and realise the importance of not so much controlling games as winning games.

“That might mean we have to take a few more chances in the final third.”