ACCRINGTON Stanley manager John Coleman says his side have a resilience that has made them a force to be reckoned with in League One.

The newly promoted Reds have taken to life at a higher level in style, going into Saturday’s game in fourth position - their highest position since the club reformed 50 years ago.

Stanley suffered a heavy defeat at Luton Town in midweek, and with the visit of leaders Portsmouth next up on Saturday they could have been forgiven for feeling daunted.

But the Reds were completely unfazed when Pompey took a 62nd minute lead, and were back on level terms two minutes later through Michael Ihiekwe’s first goal for the club, despite not getting off to the best of starts.

“For 25 minutes we got battered,” said Coleman.

“They were all over us, they were first to every ball. They made about four or five good chances, hit the post and our keeper’s made a good save. But then we came into the game after about half an hour, missed a penalty but pinned them back against a strong wind.

“And in the second half I thought we were excellent and took the game to them. They scored a goal and they hit the bar and that was probably their sum effort of attack in the second half. It was one-way traffic.

“We’re just guilty of maybe the final pass not being right, but you can’t fault the lads for effort, and I think the least we deserved was a point.”

Coleman stressed the importance of not suffering back to back defeats.

“I think it is. People will be quick to think ‘you’re bubble’s burst’ but I don’t think there’s ever been a case of a bubble. We just try to win games and we play good football,” he said.

“Sometimes (on Saturday) our passing wasn’t quite right and that’s something that disappoints us a little bit because we know we’re better than that.

“But they’re a strong side and they’ll win lots of games.

“We could have been licking our wounds and coming away with a 1-0 defeat but we stuck to our task and I think we showed remarkable resilience this year, and the harder you work things do fall for you, and you can never fault our players for effort.”

Despite Portsmouth’s lofty position after 16 games of the season, Coleman does not yet consider them a benchmark for his side.

“We still think it’s early days yet. But it says something that we’re disappointed that we haven’t beaten the league leaders,” he said. “That shows you how much we think of ourselves and how much we think we can improve. We’ll just keep our heads down and keep working hard.”