Accrington Stanley manager John Coleman claims his defence “did a number” on Bristol Rovers as they claimed a 2-0 win over the Gas in highly-controversial circumstances at the Crown Ground.
Joey Barton was so incensed about the nature of Accrington’s opening goal scored by Tommy Leigh in the 51st minute, which came via the hand of teammate Harvey Rodgers that he had to remove himself from the technical area in the closing stages for fear of a red card, fine and likely suspension.
The Rovers manager took to Twitter on Sunday with a series of messages about the standard of refereeing in the EFL, their status as amateurs and the levels of accountability they have in a public sense.
Although it wasn't fully clarified, the belief from both managers was that because Rodgers handled the ball unintentionally and with his arm in a natural position and didn’t score himself, such are the vagaries of the law, it was permitted by referee Tom Nield, and Coleman was - unsurprisingly - satisfied as his side claimed a much-needed three points to lift themselves out of the bottom four.
“There’ll be a bit of conjecture about the first goal, whether it’s handball - if it’s the player who scores, then it’s automatically handball,” Coleman said. “Because it’s come off another part of Harvey’s body before it hits him on the arm means it’s unintentional and means he can play on. I’m not saying I agree with them but they are the rules, I think. Well, I know they are the rules but I think that’s what’s happened and if that has happened, then it’s a decent goal for us.
“We defended really well. Sometimes you get the bounce of the ball that favours you - as we did - and sometimes it goes against you. Did we deserve to win the game? For the character we showed, possibly yes, but there was nothing between the two teams. Bristol will be disappointed that they didn’t let the quality that they’ve got come to the fore. Our defence did a number on them, basically.”
Rovers did lack their usual fluidity and finesse in the final third and although they mustered eight shots, four of which were on target, six arrived after Accrington’s equaliser, while Coleman claimed the Gas didn’t, at least at the start of the contest, play like a Joey Barton-style team.
Coincidentally, Barton also remarked after the game that Accrington have reverted to a more direct approach this season going against their previous incarnations under Coleman.
“I’ve seen a lot of Bristol Rovers this season and I’ve seen them play a lot better than that and I think our defence should get a lot of credit for stifling them,” Coleman added. “(I was) surprised that they went quite route one early, which is unlike Joey’s teams as they like to get down and play.
“But once we took the lead, they did start to play - we stung them into action. And for 20 minutes they had the lion’s share of the game, took the game to us, pinned us back - we couldn't really get out, it was like attack versus defence - but thankfully we stood firm.”
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