JOHN Coleman remained defiant despite seeing nine-men Accrington Stanley side crash to their third league defeat of the season on Friday.

The Reds went down 3-1 at Lincoln City, with Michael Welch and Peter Cavanagh both being dismissed after each picking up two bookings.

But Coleman believes his side are moving in the right direction and learning with every game.

"If you don't convert your chances you're not clinical in front of goal," he said.

"Give them their due they had four chances and they buried three of them with very good finishing. They have two very good forwards, to be fair.

"We've got good forwards, but when we got into great areas they didn't apply the finishing touch.

"What we have to do now is not beat ourselves up too much.

"We have got honest players, some have already held their hands up and they'll learn from this.

"They're prepared to learn and I'm prepared to learn. I'm not perfect.

"We'll go from strength to strength in this league."