It was nice to hear before the match that Keane had got rid of Lawrence, who has never been nor never will be a decent footballer never mind a good one. Good riddance. I was happy to see Stephen Elliott return to the side and presumed he’d be playing up-front with Brown however; Keane surprised us all by playing what looked like a 4-5-1 formation with Brown as the lone striker.
The first half was really poor and reminded me a lot of last week’s game. We had lots of possession but we lacked the urgency and creativity in midfield to cause any real problems. Yorke was running the show in the first half but some of his passes were trying to be a little bit too clever. We got forward as a team but once we got to between twenty and thirty yards of their goal the passes just seemed to dry up and we’d end up losing the ball. On numerous occasions Yorke had the ball in this sort of range but there was not enough movement in and around the box for him to make any cutting edge passes. Whenever the ball was played into the box, the majority of the time it went to Leadbitter who, instead of controlling the ball and passing it off, he’d try a fancy flick which never paid off. It shows how poor our midfielders were creatively when Stan Varga went on a run from defence and got a well earned corner. Varga showed some urgency which was definitely missing from certain sections of the team.
Elliott looked very lively on the ball in his wide right position and looked to be our main threat. He had a few good chances, most of which were created by himself. His persistence paid off on the stroke of half time when he turned his marker on the edge of the box and fired a fantastic shot past the Colchester ‘keeper. A very good time to get our first goal of the game and it’d surely be a confidence boost for the team to go on and finish off Colchester in the second half.
When the lads came back out they passed the ball really well and looked very comfortable. However, we needed the second goal just to ease the pressure a bit. And it came from some very good team play down the right wing. Miller, who had been fantastic for the whole game, was in possession of the ball down the right wing and laid the ball into space for Whitehead who was making a terrific overlap from right back, the ball was slightly over hit but Whitehead, through his determination, managed to get to the ball and knocked a low cross into the six yard box. All that was left was for Elliott to coolly tap home his second of the game after making a good run into the box from the wing.
For the next twenty minutes or so we were very comfortable, the lads spread the ball all over the park without creating any real chances but it was good stuff. The referee, and I use that term very loosely in today’s case, seemed to have it in for Chris Brown throughout the match. He’d warned Brown on several occasions to stop pulling the defenders shirt and finally booked him not long after Elliott’s goal for doing nothing.
Brown went off ten minutes later to save himself from being sent off. Oddly enough from this point we seemed to be on the back foot and foolishly allowed Colchester back into the game. They could have easily been 2-3 up at one point, but thanks to their forwards inability to put the ball in the back of the net we survived. Thankfully time was running out and, just as in the closing minutes of the first half, we got ourselves the third goal. Now it was definitely over. Connolly was the scorer and worked hard for his goal, holding the defender off then burying the ball past the Colchester ‘keeper who could only watch it go past him.
Hopefully Keane will stick with near enough the same team for Wolves however, I’d like to see Elliott and Connolly play up-front with Kavanagh replacing a very under par Leadbitter.
MOTM – Stephen Elliott, closely followed by Liam Miller who must certainly keep his place for Wolves.