Colchester United ran out 3-1 winners over Crawley Town to get back to winning ways, in League Two.

U’s have bouncebackability

SELDOM has the football term bouncebackability been as appropriate for a team as it currently is for Colchester United.

The U’s once again showed their ability to respond to a setback in League Two by shaking off their defeat at Stevenage and beating Crawley Town.

Colchester have lost three league matches this season – and have responded each time by winning their next game 3-1.

Ideally, the U’s will not need to bounce back from defeats too often but every team suffers setbacks, during the course of a campaign.

What is important is that when that happens, they show the character needed to respond and John McGreal’s side have certainly done that, so far.

They are now back in the play-off positions, ahead of back-to-back away games coming up.

Hot shots

THE old adage if you don’t shoot, you don’t score seems pretty true for Colchester United at the moment.

Against Crawley Town, they had 19 shots on goal in total, nine of which were on target.

Three of those ended up being goals and the second-half strikes from Frank Nouble and Luke Norris were particularly impressive.

They look a prolific force in attack especially at home, where they have scored 19 times in seven matches.

In total, John McGreal’s side have hit the net 28 times in their opening 13 games in League Two, this season.

Only West Brom and Peterborough United have hit the net more often than the U’s in the top four divisions.

Shades of Klinsmann

COLCHESTER United’s players stomped in at half-time seething at the penalty awarded against them, in the latter stages of the first half.

The U’s players felt a strong sense of injustice, having felt Crawley Town’s Luke Gambin had dived to earn a spot-kick, following Luke Prosser’s challenge on him in the area.

But rather than allow the incident to eat them up, their channelled their aggression in the right way in the second half – paving the way for their victory.

“The decisions in the first half made us come out with a totally different mentality,” admitted U’s boss John McGreal, following his side’s win.

Trevor Kettle was not exactly flavour of the month at half-time, at the JobServe Community Stadium.

But perhaps it should be Gambin’s actions - and not those of the Rutland official and his assistant – in the spotlight.

The Crawley attacker apparently admitted that he had dived afterwards – and if he is guilty of simulation and if that is the case it is unacceptable, no matter how rife it is in the game these days.

Sammie Szmodics’ diving celebration in front of the South Stand after Colchester hit back in the second half rose a smile or two and perhaps rekindled memories of Jurgen Klinsmann’s Spurs debut back in 1994, for one or two of the older U’s fans.

Barnes’ mental break

JOHN McGreal’s decision to pick Rene Gilmartin in place of Dillon Barnes in goal for Colchester United against Crawley Town came as a surprise for most.

The U’s boss played down his selection afterwards, insisting that youngster Barnes needed a ‘mental break’ having started every league game for the U’s prior to the visit of the Reds.

McGreal, on this occasion, preferred the experience of Gilmartin between the sticks, handing the former Watford keeper his first league start in more than five-and-a-half years.

Gilmartin did not let anyone down on his first-ever U’s league start and Barnes’ time will come again, as he is a talented young goalkeeper.

How ironic though that on a day when keepers were a hot topic of conversation for the U’s that Sam Walker, the man who had been their reliable number one for more than five seasons, should be sitting watching it all unfold from the stands.

Family fortunes

LUKE Norris might need to tread carefully with one particular member of his family, over the coming days.

Colchester United’s leading scorer took the family bragging rights and managed to ruin Lewis Young’s weekend, after helping to ensure his brother-in-law was on the wrong end of a 3-1 defeat.

Norris scored one goal and made the other two for the U’s, to ensure Young’s Crawley Town side left Essex empty-handed.

His nephew Reggie – who is Young’s son – was one of Colchester’s mascots for the day and ended up on the winning side too, yesterday.

It was a great day for Norris, who was in fine form once again to take his tally for the season to eight goals.