JOHN Coleman admitted Accrington were well off it after leaving Valley Parade empty-handed.

Stanley are still seventh after their City defeat but have now lost three out of their last four games.

Coleman fumed: “We’re above Bradford for a reason. But we let it become a mediocre game that was going to fall on the bounce of a ball.

“Fortunately for them that they took it.

“We didn’t work their keeper. One header that was comfortable for him to save but we huffed and puffed.

“There are no excuses. We’ve got to look at ourselves and think how we can be better.

“Bradford have leaked a lot of goals of late and they’ve got a comfortable clean sheet today that they shouldn’t have.”

Coleman was unhappy with the manner of Tyler Smith’s winner – the type of goal he says Accrington have been letting in too often.

“We defended very well first half and looked comfortable,” added the veteran boss. “We got to half-time 0-0 in front of a big crowd and half the job was done.

“But we didn’t come out second half. We gave up possession to them for 20 minutes and a lot of free-kicks came into our box.

“Then the goal we’ve conceded – we’ve conceded ones like that four or five times this season.

“A ball up to the edge of our box, their player jumps into ours, we’re going backwards, they get onto the second ball and lob the keeper. That’s happened a few times this season.

“It’s disappointing because we haven’t learned our lesson.

“We didn’t take the opportunity to pass the ball anywhere near like we could.

“We knew the game that Bradford were going to play. It was going to be very direct up to (Andy) Cook and very physical.

“We got dragged into their game and let their style of play to be the dominant factor.

“We seem to be taking one step forward and two back at the moment.

“The three teams we’ve lost to in the last four league games have all been below us.

“We’ve been capable of beating any of them and we haven’t. We’ve got to break that trend quickly.”