Danny Cowley hails Colchester resilience after victory over Fleetwood

Danny Cowley highlighted the determination of his play-off chasing Colchester side after they beat Fleetwood 2-1 to make it six League Two games unbeaten.

The U’s took a 14th-minute lead when Kyreece Lisbie headed in Jack Payne’s free-kick.

And the hosts doubled their advantage in the 38th minute through Micah Mbick, who brilliantly controlled Samson Tovide’s cross before firing a low shot past goalkeeper Jay Lynch and into the corner of the net.

Fleetwood improved in the second half and pulled a goal back in the 79th minute through Ethan Ennis, who volleyed past Matt Macey from the edge of the area after Frankie Terry had cleared Ched Evans’ effort off the line but Colchester held out.

Cowley said: “There’s no easy games in League Two, for sure.

“Fleetwood have got some really good players so for us to play as well as we did in the first half and get the lead that we did, we’re probably disappointed at half-time that we don’t find the third or fourth goal.

“We looked really exciting in the first half and going into half-time, we could have done that and put the game out of sight.

“We didn’t and they make two subs, change their system, throw caution to the wind and take lots of risk and the game opens up and there’s a lot of things we could have done better in the second half.

“But we have a huge amount of challenges, not just in the lead up to the game but also during the game so it’s credit to the group and their resilience and determination to find a way to win.”

Fleetwood boss Pete Wild was left to rue his team’s poor first-half display, after their winless run extended to seven matches in all competitions.

Wild said: “It was a game of two halves.

“It’s easy to play when you’re 2-0 down, don’t get me wrong.

“Their first goal is a set piece and the kid [Kyreece Lisbie] is putting it in at the near post, so that’s really frustrating.

“They had the second goal which was a killer on the counter – we’d talked all week about how dangerous they are on the counter and probably in the last 10 minutes of the half, they could have been four or five up.

“You can’t play like that in a first half and expect to win a football match.

“At half-time we went back to what we know with a five and we looked stronger and more front footed and more aggressive – I thought we were really good in the second half.

“Ultimately, we could and should have got a point, for as bad as we were for that 10 minutes.”