JORDAN Clark doesn't feel his Accrington Stanley side performed at their best as they progressed through to the last 16 of the Leasing.com Trophy in Tuesday night's 2-0 win over Bolton Wanderers.

The wide man assisted both goals in Stanley's win as Offrande Zanzala and Colby Bishop both finished off his good work.

Clark highlighted how not playing well yet winning should give his Stanley team mates confidence going into Saturday's match at home to Portsmouth.

"If you’re winning games and you’re not playing well then, it’s a very good sign," said Clark. "We’ll take it, it’s gives us more confidence going into Saturday now, so we’ll take that, dust ourselves down and move onto the Portsmouth game on Saturday.

"I thought they played well to be fair, especially after the last time we played them. We played a lot better than that. "I don’t think we started well; the goal gave us a bit of a lift. Credit to them, they obviously had a few as we did. I think we were lucky; we didn’t seem to be at it.

"There was no urgency, we couldn’t get our passing game going. I thought it was a bit of a sloppy game. Thankfully, our back four defended really well and probably saved us a little bit."

John Coleman made three changes to the back four that earned a point in the 1-1 draw at Tranmere Rovers on Saturday and also swapped Dimitar Evtimov in goal for Joe Bursik.

Clark was impressed with the men coming in as they kept a clean sheet.

"Jerome Opoku, Phil Edwards and Aji Alese all came in and they’ve done unbelievable, they’ve kept them at bay and not given them too many chances I can think of off the top of my head," added Clark.

"Like I said, it’s confidence for them. Joe Bursik in goal as well, he’s not played much this season, so it’s good for him to play and keep a clean sheet. I thought he did really well.

"They pinned us in a lot, and they had quite a few corners on the bounce, but I can only remember the one from the corner where Joe’s tipped it round the post which was a great save.

"Apart from that, it was all crosses that we dealt with. The back four defended immensely."