JOHN Coleman admits his former club Rochdale are becoming something of a bogey club for Accrington Stanley.

The Reds went down 2-1 at Spotland on Saturday in a game the Reds boss felt his side did more than enough to take something from.

But after a pair of 1-0 defeats last season it’s now three straight League One defeats against Dale for Coleman, who managed them for 12 months from 2012 to 2013.

The Stanley manager sees increasing parallels between the recent record his side have against Dale and the hold the Reds had over Morecambe, an unbeaten league record lasting a decade from 2005 to 2015.

“They’re becoming a bit of a bogey team at the minute for us,” Coleman said.

“I know how Morecambe felt all those years. You feel as though, no matter what you do, you’re not going to win.

“The last three times we’ve played Rochdale we’ve been the better team and lost by the odd goal.

“And coincidently three of those four goals have been scored by Iain Henderson. That’s the difference.”

It was another day where the Reds fans headed home wondering what might have been, having seen their side slip to defeat.

Stanley had 28 shots to the home side’s nine, but just six of those were on target.

Rochdale scored with two of their three efforts on target to move above the Reds into 17th in the table.

Accrington are 20th, having won two of 12 league games so far this season and Coleman knows promising performances have to turn into points sooner rather than later.

“We’ve got to start climbing the table and we’ve let Rochdale leapfrog us on Saturday,” he said.

“One of their players came up to me after the game and said ‘how’s that happened?’ and that’s one of their players!

“I’ve been around football long enough to know it does happen and you’ve just got to work hard and work through it.

“It’s happened too much this season (not getting what they feel they deserve), but what’s the point in complaining?

“You’ve got to keep trying to get better and that’s what we’ll do.”

Things get no easier for Stanley with leaders Ipswich coming to the Wham Stadium on Saturday.