MICHAEL Ihiekwe dedicated his first goal for Accrington Stanley to his barber.

Sporting a new, cropped look, the defender scored to earn a point at home to League One leaders Portsmouth on Saturday, as the Reds came back from behind after a goalless first half to draw 1-1.

And it came after having his long hair trimmed.

“I had no hair in my eyes! I am going to dedicate it to my barber!,” smiled Ihiekwe, who is on loan from Rotherham.

“I tend to get a couple of goals a season, keep putting the balls in the box and hopefully I will get a few more!

“I’m delighted with the goal, I thought we could have kicked on and we probably deserved to get the second and gone on and won the game but they are a good team, they showed that in the first half, they had us pinned in for the first 20 minutes.

“But we might look back and say it was a good point at the end of the season.

“It was a funny one, they were attacking the stand with their fans so they had to momentum to start with but we grew into the game, we have done well to not concede in that spell.”

Stanley might have taken the lead but Billy Kee had a penalty saved.

“It was a good save, but I think we did more than enough to win the game,” added Ihiekwe, who had mixed emotions as he was disappointed to concede from a set piece but happy to score from one.

“It is frustrating,” he said of Portsmouth’s opener.

“We think the lads were too high and we left too much space between Connor (Ripley) and us. It’s annoying as a defender to concede off set pieces.”

Of his equaliser, he added: “We like to change our set pieces. We don’t just put it in the box, we play short stuff.

“They must have seen that as they had three men on the end of the box which stopped us doing short corners but in the end it was a good ball in and I got my head on it.”

But he admitted his celebration wasn’t rehearsed.

“I don’t know what to do when I score, I just run back to the centre circle and get ready to go again!,” he explained.

“It’s just relief to get a goal back straight away.”

Of the idea of Portsmouth being a benchmark for Stanley, Ihiekwe said: “I think we are confident with anyone coming here, we play some good stuff, we have done well this season.

“I think every game which goes by we grow in confidence and we just need more belief and we don’t know where it will take us.

“The lads want to do well every week, when we are coming up against teams like Pompey, maybe the first 20 minutes we showed them too much respect but we have got ability and we can do something good this season

“We think we have more to come. There is still room for improvement.”