JOHN Coleman has been in the management business since 1997, but admits he is still learning.

And ahead of tomorrow’s trip to Crawley Town the Accrington Stanley boss has held his hands up to a mistake which he feels cost them two goals last Saturday.

The Reds still recorded their biggest win of the season, beating Exeter City 4-2 at home to move up to sixth in League Two.

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But Coleman conceded that his double midfield substitution midway through the second half contributed to the scoreline being less comfortable than it should have been.

“I had a rant and a rave in the press conference - times that by 15 or 20 in the dressing room afterwards,” he said.

“In the cold light of day I’m probably beating myself up because I probably made a mistakes myself - I should have only made one sub instead of two, at that time, and maybe made the second one a bit later.

“That’s no disrespect to the players who came on, but I think taking your centre midfield off, although one of them was carrying an injury, just destabilised us a little bit and lost our focus a little bit.

“That’s a free lesson that I’ve learned, and I got away with it, and it’s food for thought for the next time it happens.

“But probably a lot of my reaction was down to disappointment with myself.

“I think the players have got enough time for me and I’ve got enough time for them to know that sometimes that’s going to be the case.”

He has not yet learned to enjoy matchdays, though, despite losing only one of their eight league games so far.

He hopes that will change as the season wears on, if Stanley can reach the high standards and target set.

“When things are going well you’re still always wary that it can all stop and blow up in your face,” said Coleman.

“Jimmy made a statement at half-time on Saturday which was very salient, he said ‘We should never think we’ve arrived, at any point’, and I think that rings true.

“The minute you start having yourself is when you take your eye off the ball, and you certainly take your eye off the prize.

“I spoke earlier in the season about acting like winners and expecting to be knocking around the top half of the table, or the top three, or even top, and we have got to do that.

“And I hope we can somehow manage to get ourselves into the top three because the last time we did that was going back a long time ago, but once we hit the top in the Conference it was like a shot of adrenaline that never went away, and we took that into the rest of the season.

“So I’d love us to get into the top three and see if we can replicate that.”