Danny Cowley hails ’90-minute performance’ from Colchester in Chesterfield romp

Boss Danny Cowley was thrilled with his Colchester side after they thrashed Chesterfield 6-2 to secure their first home win of the season.

Colchester took a fifth-minute lead when Harry Anderson converted Kyreece Lisbie’s cross and Jack Payne made it 2-0 eight minutes later from close range.

Chesterfield netted in the 20th minute when Liam Mandeville converted Devan Tanton’s pass but Payne made it 3-1 in the 44th minute when he converted Lisbie’s cross and completed his hat-trick in the fifth minute of first-half stoppage-time with a penalty after Ryan Stirk had fouled Teddy Bishop.

Lisbie bagged Colchester’s fifth in the 68th minute and, although James Berry pulled another goal back for Chesterfield with an 81st-minute effort, Anderson scored Colchester’s sixth in stoppage time.

Cowley said: “We’ve played really well here on a number of occasions this season but we haven’t been ruthless and clinical enough and then let the opponents score and the game becomes so much harder when you go a goal down.

“But, today, we went ahead early and that gave us a really good place in the game. Once you get the first goal, the opposition have to come out.

“Chesterfield are a really good team; they’ve got some really good players and a brilliant manager in Paul Cook and we’ve been able to put a really good, 90-minute performance together.

“I’m pleased for Jack (Payne) because it’s not been an easy start to the season for him. He picked up an injury in pre-season and he’s a boy who’s not used to being injured.

“We had to push him back quickly but it was great for him to get three goals.”

Chesterfield boss Paul Cook felt for the supporters after watching his side crumble.

He said: “It’s probably one of the only performances as a Chesterfield manager where I felt like going over to the supporters after the game and saying sorry.

“We’ll work dead hard to get it right because at the moment we’re not right.

“That’s something I don’t want to elaborate on – we have in-house problems and my job as the manager is to sort them out.

“I don’t want to say a lot more because I’ll just end up repeating myself and talking a load of nonsense.

“I’ve been a football fan and I know what it’s like to travel and I wouldn’t want to watch what they had to watch today.

“When I watch a team, I know what a good team is and we’re not a good team.

“We’ve got loads of good players but we’ve got to gel and we’ve got to be more aggressive and be harder to beat.”