John McGreal says Colchester are bouncing after Swindon success

Posted Wednesday, January 29, 2020 by PA

Colchester boss John McGreal said his players are on a high after their impressive 3-1 win over Sky Bet League Two leaders Swindon.

Town had taken a 48th-minute lead when Diallang Jaiyesimi finished from close range from Michael Doughty’s pass, seconds after Ryan Jackson’s fine tackle had denied Hallam Hope in the area.

But Colchester substitute Luke Norris nodded in a 74th-minute equaliser following Tom Eastman’s header from Cohen Bramall’s free-kick.

Theo Robinson then stabbed United ahead in the 85th minute after Harry Pell had helped on Bramall’s corner.

And Robinson fired in a second one minute from time from close range from Norris’ headed assist.

McGreal said: “The boys are as high as a kite in there, knowing that we’ve beaten a top, top team. We’ve been able to do the double over them which is great.

“We can take great encouragement from that last half hour.

“We could have caved in but we didn’t and Dean (Gerken) didn’t cave in and that gave us confidence to get the equaliser. You’ve got to give Swindon a ton of credit.

“We know they’re a top team – we were hoping it would be a bit of a football match and they’ve definitely edged it and we felt we had to change things.

“Dean (Gerken) has done brilliantly well and made a couple of great saves to keep it to one goal and I just felt time was running out.

“We made a couple of changes which gave us a good boost and I just felt the physicality helped us.”

Doughty, Hope and Kaiyne Woolery were all denied by the impressive Gerken prior to Jaiyesimi’s opener, on a bad night for Swindon.

Town boss Richie Wellens said: “We had a disappointing last 20 minutes.

“We were over confident in the last 20 minutes and I want them to show me a reaction now.

“I want us to show more bravery on the ball; we didn’t show enough and we dropped far too deep and allowed them to put long balls in our box and gave too many free-kicks away.

“Their keeper pulled off three or four wonderful saves but on a couple of those occasions we shouldn’t give him the opportunity to pull off those saves, we should be scoring.

“We need an out-and-out striker because we haven’t got one eligible at the moment. Their subs probably helped them win the game and we just haven’t got those options on the bench.

“If we’ve got a striker today, we should be three or four up and it takes the pressure off the rest of the team.”