STANLEY boss John Coleman believes his side need to develop a ruthless edge after lamenting their results against the bottom four sides in League Two.

The Reds need to win their final two games of the season, as well as seeing a remarkable set of results go their way, to gatecrash the play-offs after their 15 game unbeaten run ended at Newport County last week.

That 1-0 defeat means Stanley have won just once in eight attempts against the bottom four, a record that has cost them their shot at promotion.

Coleman has been left to rue some bad luck his side have suffered in some of those games, but he knows they could have done more.

"You’ve got to have a better mindset and you’ve got to be more ruthless, and this season I don’t think we’ve been ruthless enough at both ends of the pitch," he said ahead of Saturday's game against Luton Town, who need a point to book their play-off spot.

"There’s been times when we’ve defended magnificently this year, we’ve got blocks, put our bodies on the line, made interceptions and clearances, but other teams don’t think twice about chopping our best players down. I’ve lost count of the number of times Shay McCartan has been chopped down when he gets on a run.

"I don’t think we’re ruthless enough in doing that and taking the sanction of a yellow."

Before defeat at Rodney Parade Stanley had high hopes of making the top seven, despite having been just a point above the bottom two at the start of February and 16 points off the top seven.

Although the unbeaten run ended at 15, Coleman admitted it had still been an impressive effort from his side.

"We knew we had a squad capable of doing it, that’s the frustrating thing, we knew we could do it at the start of the season," he added.

"I knew we were capable of putting a run together. Even at Christmas we didn’t rule out promotion.

"The harsh reality is that run that we got on should guarantee you at least the play-offs if not automatic promotion, but we started it from too low a position.

"We should never have been in that position in the first place. We could have started that run nine or 12 points further on.

"Sometimes luck plays a part, you can’t legislate for it. Look at the games we’ve lost at the bottom four, we’ve had players sent-off in many of them, some have been rescinded. Mark Hughes getting sent off at Hartlepool in a game we’ve absolutely dominated, we have a man sent-off and a penalty given against us and it gets rescinded because it was never even a foul.

"Things like that can take three points of you that ultimately have a big bearing on where you finish in the table and what kind of success you have."

Although the Reds are now 13th in League Two they are still within five points of the play-offs, and Coleman still has his eyes on a top half finish.

"When we were on this run I said the first objective was to finish in the top half and still we want that and a platform to build on for next year," he said.

"The players will want to put Newport behind them, hopefully there will be a good crowd here on Saturday and it will be an entertaining game, and it is a game we can win if we’re at our best."