John McGreal revels in ‘terrific’ Colchester win over Port Vale

John McGreal praised Colchester’s “terrific” performance after they beat visitors Port Vale 2-0 to register their first win of the season.

The U’s bagged both of their goals in the opening quarter of the game, to make it four points from six in League Two.

Colchester went ahead in the eighth minute through the impressive Courtney Senior, who collected possession midway inside the Vale half and exchanged passes with Brennan Dickenson before slotting low past Scott Brown.

And Ryan Jackson doubled Colchester’s advantage in the 23rd minute when he fired past Brown from 12 yards following Sammie Szmodics’ back-heel.

U’s boss McGreal said: “I thought that it was a terrific performance and it’s a good start for us.

“We made a couple of changes and we have our squad in a good place, knowing that if players need to come in and we change shape we can adapt to that and I thought we did that.

“Courtney is an unbelievable talent and I thought he was terrific for his goal.

“I wanted to go a bit different at Notts County as I’d already said on the record.

“When he gets going, it’s very difficult for defenders to catch him because he’s got that terrific turn of pace.

“At times, Courtney needs a rest but there’s no denying his quality or his temperament and you can see him improving and maturing every game.

“He knows now that as good as he is going forward, he’s now learning his role out of possession as well.”

Port Vale were second best throughout, despite Colchester goalkeeper Dillon Barnes denying Tom Pope in the first half and then substitute Leon Legge late on.

Vale boss Neil Aspin admitted they did not deserve anything from the game.

He said: “Instead of starting by saying that we were very poor, I’d like to give credit to the opposition – I thought they were very good and caused us a lot of problems and deservedly won the game.

“Sometimes, managers don’t give enough credit to the opposition and I thought that Colchester were good and thoroughly deserved their win.

“We did well last week against Cambridge but we weren’t anywhere near that today and if we’re going to pick up points, we have to be like we were last week and much better than we were today.

“We got what we deserved today which was nothing.

“Last week, we were sharper, competed better, worked hard and tracked runners – we did everything that you need to, to stay in the game before you can eventually get yourself into a position where you can win it.

“But today, the game was over after 23 minutes and they cut through us too easily.”