Always good value for a quote Accrington Stanley boss John Coleman has again been airing his views, this time in The Lancashire Telegraph following his sides 3-1 defeat at Spotland on Saturday.

Accrington Stanley boss hits out at 'farcical' penalty verdicts

JOHN Coleman has slammed the 'farcical' refereeing his side have endured this season after being upset that Accrington Stanley were denied three penalties at Rochdale on Saturday.

Coleman had no complaints with the penalty referee Colin Webster awarded to Rochdale, allowing Adam Le Fondre to score from the spot for the third time in three years against Stanley at Spotland, but is angry that his side have been given only two penalties this season.

In contrast, six penalties have been given against them, four of which have come in the last five games.

The Stanley boss said: "Theirs was probably a penalty, but if that's a penalty we should have had three.You get to the point where you feel like the good guy who was in those films years ago, you stumble across a hick town and there's a sheriff there and you can't understand why he's against you. That's the way I feel at the moment."

"There's an absolute stone-wall handball, there's a stone-wall penalty on John Miles and a stone-wall push in the back on Bobby Grant. I always know we're going to concede a penalty here because that's what happens and I also know that we don't get penalties here."

"It's bordering now on being very unfair. The amount of penalties we've been turned down this season, compare that to the ones that have been given against us, it's bordering on farcical.I don't expect anything off the officials. All you really want is fairness."

And Coleman was frustrated that, like on previous visits to Spotland, his side held their own for long periods before losing to last year's beaten play-off finalists.

He said: "I think next year we may just send the video of the past four years because they all seem to go exactly the same. You've got to take positives because Rochdale are a decent side and I think they're harbouring ambitions of going up and they made the play-offs last year. But we played them off the park for an hour with a very under-strength side."

"The easy thing is just to blame the officials and say it's their fault we haven't won.It's not their fault we haven't won, but they have certainly been a contributory factor to us not scoring goals.The top and bottom of why we haven't won is that we've wasted chances, we've conceded a sloppy goal and then we've lost our way."