Danny Cowley praises Colchester’s response to midfielder shortage

Danny Cowley was pleased with his Colchester side’s performance after they claimed a deserved 2-0 home victory over Cheltenham.

The U’s took an eighth-minute lead when Kyreece Lisbie clinically fired past goalkeeper Joe Day and they sealed a third straight League Two win in the 50th minute through Micah Mbick.

The winning run has come with Cowley struggling for fit midfielders and he praised their response.

U’s boss Cowley said: “We were pleased with the group.

“It’s been a tough week really, because we had five or six midfielders out but I have to say, I thought Rob Hunt was man of the match.

“I thought he was incredible, to go in there (midfield) and play with an intelligence both with the ball and against the ball was great and a big part of that victory was his performance.

“We knew we had to be a bit more purposeful because of the midfielders being unavailable and we’ve had to adapt how we play in the last three games and we played a bit quicker.”

Cowley also praised the performance of his two goalscorers.

He added: “Kyreece and Micah are such a handful.

“We thought we could get some success in behind their left-hand side and it was a really calm finish from Kyreece.

“It was a fantastic finish from Micah and it obviously gave us a good place in the game.”

Colchester deserved their win and could even afford to miss a 52nd-minute penalty when Day saved Arthur Read’s spot-kick, after Lisbie was fouled by Hakeeb Adelakun in the area.

Day had earlier denied Harry Anderson and Read and although Colchester defender Harvey Araujo made a good goal-line clearance to deny Isaac Hutchinson, it was the hosts’ day.

Cheltenham boss Steve Cotterill said: “We haven’t started well for a little while now and we didn’t start very well in that game.

“We don’t need to wait until we get a punch on the nose before we come out and play.

“There’s not many teams that come here and have more of the ball than these – they’ve done very well here.

“We’ve had more of the ball and more efforts on goal than they have.

“They’ve had more on target and obviously, the important ones have gone in, so from our point of view we’re disappointed with parts of our performance in that.

“The first goal we thought at the time was offside and from the angle we’ve seen afterwards, it looks marginally offside.

“We were disappointed with that first goal, because we thought he could have been offside.

“The second goal, it’s a great finish but we could get a block on that.”