Danny Cowley pleased with how Colchester adapted in Walsall win

Colchester boss Danny Cowley felt his staff’s homework paid off after they completely outplayed Walsall in a 2-0 win which knocked the Saddlers off the top of League Two.

Both goals came in a one-sided first half as close-range strikes from Samson Tovide and Kyreece Lisbie rewarded enterprising attacking play from the visitors.

The U’s then defended stoutly after the break to limit Walsall to barely any opportunities of note as Cowley’s side registered a fourth win in six league games to climb clear of trouble in 14th.

Cowley said: “It’s one of my favourite results [since becoming U’s boss] because we don’t like changing the way we play really and we were umming and ahhing whether to do it.

“But when we looked at the opposition, their threats, the analysis and stats, it all made sense for us to adapt. Ultimately we were able to absorb their threat and punch back with some really high-quality play.

“We took a lot less risk in our own half because we know they are a team that scores so many goals from pinching and punishing, playing on people’s mistakes – I suppose we out Walsall-ed Walsall today.

“First half we looked such a threat, we got behind them on countless occasions and got two really well-worked goals which put us in a great position.

“Then second half, we saw the other side of us. When you come to the league leaders there are always going to be moments where you have to dig in and the boys did that fantastically well.”

Walsall, meanwhile, surrendered top spot to Swindon after a third defeat in four games.

It took until the final 20 minutes for them to test U’s goalkeeper Matt Macey and he was equal to efforts from Jid Okeke and Charlie Lakin.

Boss Mat Sadler admitted: “They changed things around and it was really effective – for 45 minutes they were definitely the better team and we didn’t react quickly enough to the changes.

“We weren’t ourselves – athletic and aggressive, we weren’t that. Balls were coming forward too quickly and easily and it was disappointing because we didn’t play to our basics.

“That was the most frustrating thing but also we gave ourselves a mountain to climb with two really poor goals [to concede].

“This is League Two – there are going to be tough challenges along the way, it’s never one-way and you can see that from how tight everything is, every game is really competitive.

“We want to be in there shouting but to be there we’ve got to make sure we’re ‘us’ more often than not – and we weren’t for the first half.”