JOHN Coleman says his players are still hurting from the weekend defeat to Southend United and will be looking to take it out on Salford City tonight.

Stanley travel to the Peninsula Stadium for their Leasing.com Trophy quarter final clash with the 2-1 loss still fresh in the mind - so Coleman wants a reaction from his players as Stanley eye a first appearance at Wembley Stadium.

While the manager understands the significance of the tie, he says every match is "massive" as Stanley look to rediscover the form that saw Coleman named manager of the month for December.

“It’s always been big for me, it’s a chance to get to Wembley,” he said. “We’ve tried our hardest in it, sometimes we haven’t had the best of luck, sometimes we haven’t had the best of performances.

“I know the lads are hurting that they didn’t win on Saturday and this will be a chance to get that out of the system.

“It’s a massive game but every game we play now is going to be massive until the end of the season and we have got to find a way to start winning games again like we did in December.”

Coleman is expecting a tough challenge from a Salford side who won 2-1 at Forest Green Rovers on Saturday despite having two players sent out.

“They are a decent side, they have some good players and spent a lot of money in the transfer market and signed established players,” he said. “They had a great win on Saturday, even with going down to nine men, so it is going to be a tough game but we would like to think we can give them a tough game.”

Coleman stands by his opinion that the winner of the Fleetwood v Stanley tie in the previous round would get to Wembley - but he knows Salford will have a say in matters.

“I stand by it, will it spur Salford on, possibly,” he said. “You’re in there to try and win the game and I am in there to try and win the game, try and win the semi final and get to Wembley and win the cup as I am sure Salford are.

“So on the day it is who comes out on top. That might take a little bit of luck or little bit of skill and let’s hope its the latter.”

Coleman admitted he was annoyed with his decision making in the Southend defeat.

“I have to take some of the blame, I changed a shape that was doing well in the first half,” he said. “We didn’t start the second half particularly well and I’ve changed the shape after 65-70 minutes and gone to three at the back.

“We lost our width, lost the dynamics we were playing with.

“So I have got to take the blame for that, for changing the shape.

“But we did more than enough in the first half to win the game and if we can continue to play like that, we will win more games than we don’t.”