ACCRINGTON manager John Coleman has refused to rule out a late play-off surge after his rampant Reds made it nine games unbeaten at Morecambe in midweek.

Shay McCartan’s double, including a now trademark free-kick, gave them a fourth win in five at the Globe Arena and pushed them up to 14th in the table – 10 points off seventh place.

While making up that gap seems unlikely with just nine games of the season remaining, Coleman will send his side out to face Grimsby Town tomorrow insisting they are out to win every game.

“You’ve got to be realistic but why put a seal on your ambitions?” he said ahead of the Mariners’ visit to the Wham Stadium (3pm).

“If I said I want to finish 14th I think I’d get castigated, and rightly so.

“You want to try and win every game you play and see where that takes you.

“We certainly won’t be going out in any game to drop points.

“That’s not to say we won’t drop points, we probably will, but it won’t be through design or desire, it will be because whatever happens happens.

“It will be easy to look back on the season and bemoan your luck and bemoan your bad form – ifs and buts and all that palaver.

“You’ve got to focus on trying to finish as high as we can and it would be great to finish seventh, wouldn’t it?”

Grimsby arrive in East Lancashire three points and one place better off then the Reds, who have played a game less.

But manager Marcus Bignot dismissed their hopes of reaching the end-of-season shootout following the 1-1 draw with Crawley Town last weekend.

“I’ve got to look and be honest and be realistic,” Bignot said. “On one hand I’m disappointed that it’s gone, but on the other I’ve seen some promising signs .”

That doesn’t mean Coleman is expecting an easy ride.

He said: “We know it’s going to be a tough game but we’re playing well, we know we’ve got a good side, and the players know they’re playing with good players.

“We want to try and avenge the defeat against Grimsby (on Boxing Day) like we avenged the earlier defeat against Morecambe in midweek.

“It shouldn’t matter who you’re playing, we have got to focus on what we’re doing.

“We will do the due diligence of studying how Grimsby play and highlighting to the players areas we think they can hurt us.

“But at the end of the day we’ve got to concentrate on us.

“If we get it right we are hard to stop.”