John Coleman believes tonight’s game against local rivals Bury and a return home to the Store First Stadium can help his side return to winning ways.

The Reds have lost their last two matches and come into this evening’s clash eight points adrift of the visitors who occupy the final play-off spot in League Two.

The match with the Shakers was postponed a fortnight ago due to torrential rain at the Store First Stadium but the manager feels it’s a fixture that has been worth the wait.

“There is rivalry between the two teams,” said Coleman. “I wasn’t at the last game but from all accounts Accrington shouldn’t have lost at Bury earlier on this season.

“Our home form’s been quite good and hopefully we can get our season back on track with a win.

“I hope the fans come and watch us now because they haven’t had the chance to for ages.

“But we’ve got to do what I know we can do, we’ve got to start defending properly, and then our approach play has got to be better and obviously our conversion rate has got to be better.

Coleman has been left frustrated by defeats at Tranmere and Wimbledon and knows that defending must improve with his side without a league clean sheet in their last 13 matches.

He isn’t ruling out changes to his side to try to put things right.

“Nobody’s place should be safe to be honest, whether you’re playing well or not or whether you’re winning games or not,” he explained. “If you get that you’re wasting your time having a squad.

“Some of the things we do defy belief. When you watch the goals again, teams don’t have to do a great deal to score against us.”

Despite the previous two results, the manager doesn’t expect them to affect his team’s approach to this evening’s game.

“It’s not all doom and gloom,” he continued. “We’ll try to prepare the lads as well as we can and try to pick a team that we think can do a job to win the game.

“Any game would have done me, but there’s added spice being Bury obviously.

“It stops you mulling over things because you’ve got to prepare for a game quickly now. That’s probably the best for me, and I’d like to think it’s best for the players.

“We’re not going into it thinking we’ve got no chance of beating Bury, we’re going into it believing we are going to win.”