Accrington Stanley

Last Season at a glance

20th in League One

It was very much an itty bitty season for Accy last year, as you'd expect from a side that had come up two divisions within the last three seasons. Of course, they found the step up to League Football difficult, as you'd expect but the important thing for them was that they survived, even it was by the skin of their teeth. It wasn't looking good at one point, and when we put them to the sword at Spotland, it was looking very grim. However, five wins from their final nine matches was enough to secure league survival at the first attempt.

Coleman has been at the helm at Accrington for almost eight years now, making him the longest serving manager in the division. In that time, he's led them to three promotions, and probably finds himself the most secure manager in the whole division.

There can be few questions regarding Coleman's ability as a manager and whilst there may well have been plenty of shortcomings of his Accrington side last time round, these should not be seen as a reflection on Coleman.

Well for a start, the season won't be a step into the unknown for Accrington. Coleman had kept faith with a lot of the players who had taken them into the Football League. Such a move is always a gamble, especially with many not having played at such a level before.

That experience will come in very useful this time round, and Coleman has clearly brought a number of new recruits in this Summer to add to his side, and the players coming in certainly look better than the ones who have left.

McEvilly will score goals, but more about him later. But the pick of the signings for me is Graham Branch. Branch is pretty much one of those "been there, done that" sort of players, and he will be invaluable in the Accy dressing room this season. He might be getting on a bit, and at 35 he's clearly got his better days behind him but he'll more than do a job for Stanley over this next seaon.

Hmmm. Well we don't think they'll have a worse season this time round, so it's a bit of a struggle to put anything down in this bit, but we'll give it a go.

Last season saw them enter the Football League with a bit of momentum behind them which carries plenty of teams through that first season. This had Accy on the verges of the play offs in October, but once they got beyond that, it was downhill all the way and there was no doubting they were one of the poorest sides we played last season when they came to Spotland.

They might indeed have dropped out the League altogether had it not been for a pull out all the stops effort in the final few games, helped on by free transport, free entry and the relief of not having points docked by the Football League for playing unregistered players.

Take away that initial momentum, you have to question where they will have the stomach for a fight a second time round. They'll be well aware that they are punching above their weight as it is, so they'll probably only look upon relegation  as heading back to where they came from, in perhaps the same way that Watford did in the Premiership last season. It's an inevitability that will happen sooner or later.

Injuries have pretty much put Evil's career on hold over the past couple of years. He had a move to Bradford lined up in the Summer of 2006, until he failed the medical. He missed about half of the last season, but he still managed a creditable seven goals despite that.

You know what you get with Evil. He's big, he's a touch clumsy at times, and looks massively overweight, but if you cast your memory back, he didn't half get some great goals whilst with us, and that York defender is still having nightmares about Evil. On a good day, he was miles more classy than clumsy, and you don't fluke goals like he scored against Preston, Rushden etc

If John Coleman can get McEvilly showing the sort of form he did for Accy in the Conference, then he'll ensure that there is no end of season panic stations. But does Evil have it in him to be fit and available for the full season? That's the big question which could make or break Accrington's season.

Whilst we reckon things will be a touch better for Accy this time round, we'd be kidding ourselves if we thought that equated with a push for the play offs.

Coleman has brought in players who will keep Accrington up, not inspire them to the top half of the table. But that in itself should not be looked upon as failure, and whilst Accy continue to establish themselves as a Football League side, I'm sure most Accy fans would snap the hand off if offered survival at this stage.

But there definitely seems to be an improvement in what Stanley have to play with this time round. The players are better and more experienced and we can see relegation being much less of a threat this time round.

However, before we get carried away and start predicting glory glory Accrington Stanley, Evil does play a big part for them. We doubted his ability to play a full season above. He's only managed half the season over the past two years, and we reckon he'll be in and out over the season. And if injuries don't catch up with him, suspensions will do.