Accrington Stanley boss John Coleman was pleased with his side’s performance as they secured a 5-2 win over Liverpool Under-21s in the Leasing.com Trophy.
Stanley had already booked their place in the knockout stages following wins over Fleetwood Town and Oldham Athletic in recent weeks.
The Reds made it three wins from three in the competition, with goals from Ross Sykes, Courtney Baker-Richardson, Dion Charles, Jordan Clark and Connor Simpson.
Coleman said: “We played some good football.
”(They were) two sloppy goals to give away, we’re really disappointed with them and that’s something we’ve got to iron out of our game.
”They had a lot of the ball without really hurting us, and sometimes you can get too comfortable and lower your standards.
”Some of the attacking play was very good and we got our customary goal that’s disallowed.
”I’ve never known that in my life, to score three perfectly good goals on the bounce and have them all disallowed but that was the case tonight, but we stuck to the task.”
Coleman was particularly pleased with the quality his side showed in the final third.
”Jordan Clark’s goal is one of the best goals I’ve seen in a long time.
”We’ve got three candidates for goal of the season now with Jordan, Joe (Pritchard) and Dion (Charles), and we’re not out of October.
”We can’t govern what the opposition put out, they put a lot of youngsters out tonight.
”It’ll be a good education for them I suppose, they had some good players and they moved the ball well.
”There’s a difference when you’re playing against men, and we had a lot of them playing tonight so we’d expect to win that game.”
Following recent results in Sky Bet League One, Coleman admits it was a relief to see his side back in the goals.
”We needed to get back among the goals for our own sanity I think, and we did.
”We worked a long night (on Monday) and part of the game was a carbon copy of our training session, so hats off to Jimmy (Bell) and John (Doolan).
”I don’t think anyone can complain about us going in in the lead at half-time, and we scored some good goals in the second half.
”(It was) disappointing we conceded the second goal but overall you’ve got to say the lads did the job.”
Coleman made seven changes from the side that lost to Gillingham last weekend, and he is embracing the squad depth at his disposal.
”They’ve got to maintain their fitness, they could be called upon any time and they’ve got to be fit to take that opportunity.
”When they get that opportunity, there’s no reason why they can’t stay in, you want healthy competition for places.
”We haven’t been playing that badly this season so there’s no need to push any panic buttons just yet, but we’re always striving to get better and if players can come in and do well that’s good.”