ACCRINGTON Stanley manager John Coleman spoke of his pride in his players, despite slipping to a rare home defeat.

The Reds were beaten 2-0 by a Barnsley side who moved up one place to third.

But, despite being frustrated at the manner in which his side lost in the end, Coleman felt that the overall performance was “a step up”.

“It felt, for the first time, like a step up in level. And we stepped up with them,” said the Stanley boss.

“It shows that we can compete at this level.

“To all intents and purposes they’re a Championship team, so we’re not far away from being a Championship team if we can match them as well as we did for as long as we did.

“I thought we matched them for 65 minutes. I thought we were the better team for 65 minutes to be fair. They took the lead pretty much against the run of play.

“Our lads ran themselves into the ground. I thought Sam Finley was magnificent.

“It’s just a pity that we stopped giving him the ball in the last 20 minutes when he was having such an effect on the game. Some of his passing was sublime.

“I was incredibly proud of the players. But I was disappointed for them, and with them, for the last 25 minutes because we changed our game when they went out to 10.”

And Coleman explained his frustrations.

“You’d think we’d had the man sent off and not them,” he said. “We went long too soon, we rushed it, we panicked. We lost the ball on numerous occasions under no pressure. We’re not a long ball team, certainly not against four basketball players who can head it and kick it, so I just think we got our strategy wrong towards the end.

“That’s possibly my fault for going three at the back and putting an extra striker on, which maybe invited our players to go forward more quickly.

“You do have to go for it. But we tried to be more attacking and in the end we were less attacking because we weren’t passing the ball, we were just lumping it forward, and that’s not our game.

“That’s what I’m disappointed with. But fair play to them, they saw it out brilliantly after they went down to 10 men; tactically they were strong. There was a lot of gamesmanship, which I’ve no problem with. They saw the game out really well.”

“I’m disappointed that we haven’t scored because that’s only our third blank of the season. There aren’t many teams who keep us out, especially with 10 men.

“But we’ll dust ourselves down and we’ll go again.”

Coleman was pleased with the effort off the pitch too, adding: “Seeing the ground as full as it was, it was like going back to the old Peel Park days.

“It was a smashing game, cracking atmosphere."