JOHN Coleman is determined to keep his squad’s feet on the ground as Accrington Stanley go in search of a fourth successive victory tomorrow.

The Reds have taken nine points from nine since Coleman and his assistant Jimmy Bell returned to the club, and for the first time in a while they go into a game as favourites.

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While Stanley might be the league’s form team at the moment, Coleman is aware of how quickly fortunes can turn in football, and he is not expecting his side to have it all their own way against Dagenham and Redbridge.

“It’s always been my mantra that you can raise people’s expectations all you want,” said Coleman. “But you’ll never ever lower them once you’ve raised them.

“You’ve only got to see the amount of managers who take teams up from the Championship to the Premier League and ultimately it costs them their job for being successful.

“To a lesser scale if you look at Russ Wilcox at Scunthorpe, getting a promotion and going on an unbelievable run, but then things don’t go for you and all of a sudden you’re out of work.

“It’s a very, very fickle industry, and I know more than anybody about that, but if you keep your feet on the ground you don’t get carried away, and I can be accused of a lot of things over the years, but I’ve always been one to not get too high when we’ve been doing well and never get too low.

“I used to get criticised sometimes because I didn’t celebrate when we scored or I didn’t smile, inside you’re jumping about but you’ve got to keep yourself on the ground and you’ve got to keep the players like that.”

Despite being keen to play down expectations, Coleman was delighted with the performance of his side in last week’s 1-0 win at Mansfield.

“Sometimes you can’t hide it and you’re over the moon, you’re jumping through hoops,” he said.

“In the first half on Saturday we were very, very reminiscent of a team who were top of the league, and don’t forget I’ve had teams who have been top of the league at Accrington so I know all about it, and we had that belief and that swagger.”

Stanley might be favourites for the visit of Dagenham tomorrow, but having watched them Coleman is convinced it will be a tough test.

“Whatever way you dress it up, because we are going into games now as one of the form teams – if not the form team – you’re there to be shot at, you become a scalp,” he said.

“And it’s difficult for players sometimes when they have to adjust what the demands are.

“We go into Saturday and because Dagenham are below us in the table all of a sudden we’ll be expected to beat them.

“Football doesn’t work like that. I’ve watched Dagenham and they’re a good side, they’re very, very entertaining, they play a smashing brand of football that should lend itself to a great game of football, because both teams are going to try and play.

“They attack and they’re refreshing to be honest, they’re away form has probably been better than their home form, so it’s going to be a really tough game.”