Accrington Stanley take on managerless Ipswich Town tomorrow night aiming to get back to winning ways to boost their promotion push.
The Tractor Boys parted company with Paul Lambert yesterday by mutual consent with former Reds boss Paul Cook favourite to take over.
Town are one of the in-form teams in League One, having lost one of their last seven matches, and are currently eighth in the table, one place below Stanley on the same points having played the same number of games.
John Coleman’s side have one win in seven – having picked up seven points out of a possible 21 – and the Reds boss knows his side needs to start getting those three points on board if they are to occupy a Play-Off spot.
“I think whoever takes charge tomorrow at Ipswich will have been part of the coaching staff so I don’t think it will make much difference to the way they play,” said Coleman.
“Football in general sees a high turnover of managers. It’s a crazy industry, it’s cut-throat. It’s a brilliant industry to be in, but it’s also a terrible one - the way dealings go on, managers are maligned.
“It’s such a merry-go-round. It always has been just not as brutal as it is now but we have to get on with it.
“We have played against teams who have changed managers before, such as Steve Cotterill and John Sheridan. I think it was their first games in charge of Shrewsbury and Swindon respectively when we played them and it would be unusual to go through a season without it nowadays.
“Ipswich are on a good run of form. There are good times and bad times to play any teams but we have to get back to getting our own form right and not worry about the opposition too much.
“When we get it right, we are as good as anybody and we have proved that against the top teams.
“We have got to score more goals, have a little bit of luck, you have got to work hard and make things happen.”
The Reds drew at Fleetwood on Saturday with Nathan Baxter keeping out a Josh Morris 78th minute penalty to keep it all-square.
Coleman continued: “We have got to be more pro-active, we spoke about it in the dressing room in a meeting after the game.
“Instead of hoping things will happen, we have got to make sure they do happen by being proactive.
“A lot of games between now and the end of the season involving every team in League One, they are akin to a toss of a coin, anything can happen on the day and you just have to try and be at your very best. When we are good, we are good, when we are bad, we are not very good.
“There doesn’t seem an inbetween, we don’t play averagely. On Saturday, there was times when we were very good but not just for long enough. Other times you think ‘What are we doing there?’
“We just have to try and get more consistency into our game but we have got to be more pro-active to try and get what we want which is a Play-Off place and hopefully promotion.”
Coleman is hoping top scorer Dion Charles recovers after going over on his ankle on Saturday while Joe Pritchard will also face a late fitness test.
Ipswich have former Red Toto Nsiala in their ranks as well as striker Kayden Jackson, whose goals helped fire Stanley to the League Two title in 2018.
Jackson hasn’t been playing regularly this season and Coleman added: “I like Kayden, he is a great lad, he knows what we are about.
“The management have deemed not to choose him at the moment, that could change tomorrow.”