Accrington boss John Coleman praised the Stanley faithful for helping roar his side to a big win in their bid to stay In League One.

Ross Sykes scored twice as the hosts saw off fellow strugglers Walsall 2-1 at the Wham Stadium on Saturday.

The victory moved Stanley four points clear of the drop zone with four games to play and saw them rebound from Tuesday night's defeat to Rochdale.

Sykes headed home a Sean McConville free kick to put Coleman's men on their way only for Nicky Devlin's deflected strike to level things up just after the half hour.

The winner came 20 minutes from time as Sykes converted at the second attempt, the Saddlers finishing the game with 10 men after Josh Gordon's late red card for two bookable offences.

"I'm delighted with the result," said Coleman.

"We played well on Tuesday and just didn't get the bounces.

"It's very difficult to play any kind of football when the pitch turns like this and that's certainly not just our pitch

"It becomes a bit of a lottery with the wind as well and it's bouncing everywhere.

"It's really difficult to get the ball down.

"I think our fans did us proud though.

"I asked for the flags and they were brilliant and the victory was as much down to them as it was the players.

"There was a big effort from everybody and everybody combined to help get us over the line."

As Stanley moved up to 16th and Walsall stayed second bottom, Coleman felt it was a day where his side made their own luck.

"If you've watched our last three games you can't fault the players for effort," the Stanley boss said post-match.

"The games are coming thick and fast and they've never been found wanting when it comes to determination.

"Sometimes you just don't get the breaks and we haven't got them at all this season.

"We've come through that though and we were adamant that luck wasn't going to be the deciding factor.

"We had to play through that and not be able to blame anybody but ourselves if we didn't win.

"Thankfully we got the goal."

Sykes' winner was needed after Walsall equalised on 33 minutes with a deflection needed to take Devlin's effort past Dimitar

Evtimov.

"It's a sickener because it's probably the only shot they had," said Coleman.

"It was deflected and that's when you really think your luck is against you.

"They had a break in the second half and Mark Hughes has made an unbelievable challenge and that's as good as a goal for us

really.

"We defended very well and limited them to very few chances and made quite a lot ourselves."