FAILING to treat Accrington Stanley with the same respect as Sunderland will see Swindon Town lose consecutive away games, according to assistant manager Tommy Wright.

Town travel up to Lancashire to take on a Stanley side whose Crown Ground stadium contains almost 45,000 fewer people, when at capacity, than the Black Cats’ Stadium of Light.

Wright told his players before Tuesday night’s defeat that they should not play the stadium and simply focus on the 11 in front of them in order to not become overawed by the experience.

When asked what the Scottish coach’s advice would be to his team prior to striding out onto vastly different surroundings, Wright said: “The advice this weekend is the same as Tuesday.

“You can get caught up with the external factors – it’s not the Stadium of Light, clearly, it’s totally the opposite.

“But when you go to Accrington, if you don’t compete you will get rolled over. It’s as simple as that.

“They’re honest, they work hard, they’ve got some really good players. It’s quite a demanding place to play, in a different way to the Stadium of Light.

“No disrespect, but it’s a bit of a fourth division or non-league ground. They’ve come up from the bottom and done fantastically well, and they’ve got a winning mentality.

“They’ve done very, very well in the past few years, especially when you see where they’ve come from.

“My advice again is don’t play the stadium, go out there and compete and respect them.”

Wright said he was proud of his team’s effort during Tuesday night’s defeat but would like to see Town take better care of the ball when taking on an Accrington side that has not won any of its past four.

The 55-year-old reiterated his message regarding respect to Stanley, but said he firmly believes Swindon can return to Wiltshire with three points if they play to their full capability.

He said: “The respect that Sunderland get is automatic because of the club they are and the stadium they have, but if you go to Accrington and don’t respect them, you will come off with nothing.

“You’ve got to respect them, you’ve got to compete, and we’ve got to believe in ourselves and keep the ball better.

“We didn’t do that the other night, even though we competed really well, and our discipline and our tactics were good.

“With the ball, we let ourselves down by not believing in ourselves enough. It’s a difficult place to go, Accrington, but we can definitely get something.”