We're creating chances and that is a massive positive

IT was frustrating not to beat Chesterfield on Tuesday night, as our performance warranted the three points.

They took the lead with a wonder goal but we created chance after chance and lacked a bit of a cutting edge to put them away.

Sometimes when you get to the 80-minute mark and you’re chasing a game it can die a death a bit but Brandon came on and scored a really good header and got us back into it and we could have won it after that, with Drey hitting the post.

The massive positive to come out of the Chesterfield game for us was that just as we had against Crawley last weekend we created a lot of chances - if you keep doing that then you’re naturally going to score goals.

I was pleased with the save that I made to stop them going 2-0 ahead, just before half-time.

You might have some quiet periods in games but then still have to make key players and earn your money and that’s what happened.

It was very quiet in the first half an hour with not much going on from them but there was a spell of around 15 minutes where I had to make saves both before and after they scored.

I’m pleased with my game at the moment.

I feel like I’m making some important saves that are keeping us in games and while I’m doing that, it helps give us the springboard that we need to go down the other end and score goals ourselves.

Even when we were 3-0 against Crawley, it sounds funny but that can be a difficult scoreline.

When you’re that far ahead at half-time in a game, it’s sometimes difficult to go out in the second half and carry that same momentum on.

We knew that Crawley would come at us, so the penalty save was one that I was pleased with.

I’ve got a pretty good penalty-saving record at Colchester – I don’t keep a record of how many I’ve saved but our media manager Matt Hudson is going to check it out for me.

I think my record is about 50 per cent, which is pretty good and I see it as a chance to do my bit.

I have to say that while I enjoyed my penalty save against Crawley, the follow-up clearance by Cameron James just after was phenomenal.

Let's put away-day hoodoo to bed

WE head to Cheltenham Town this weekend, looking to get our first league away win of the season.

We feel we have three very winnable away games coming up against Cheltenham, Grimsby and Yeovil before the end of this month.

We could get to the end of September with nothing more being said about what happened in August, if we can get three away wins in those games.

With the way we’re playing, we’re confident of winning games wherever we play but we know that we need to transfer our home form to the away games, which will help us push up the table.

When we last played at Cheltenham last season, we won 3-0 there and I have memories of feeling relieved after that game.

We were at rock bottom in the days immediately before that game, following on from the Yeovil defeat where we threw away a lead late on and it was all a bit doom and gloom.

But we won at Cheltenham and that was the moment that turned our season around.

A very pleasing statistic

A STAT was doing the rounds on Twitter last week about the number of minutes I’ve played – apparently no player has played more minutes in League Two over the last two season than me, which last week was 4,590 minutes.

That pleases me for two reasons – I’ve based my game around sheer hard work, graft and consistency and to play that amount of minutes back to back is the way I like to go about my business.

It’s not just the matches, either – I didn’t miss a day of training last season and it’s the same this season, too.

The other reason it pleases me is that I spent almost all of the 2015-16 season out with a serious injury, so to come back and play as many minutes as that is great.

I’ve worked hard to stay fit and I want to be that solid, reliable figure for the team that I have been in the past and hope to be in the future.

Football is a cut-throat industry

IT’S always sad to see a manager lose his job, like Frank De Boer has at Crystal Palace.

But his record has been pretty woeful there since he took over and you do understand the pressure there is now on clubs to stay in the Premier League, even at this early stage of the season.

Football is a cut-throat industry – we’ve seen this kind of thing before and we’ll see it again.

I think Palace have more than enough quality to stay up and Roy Hodgson has a lot of experience.

People have talked about his age and the fact that he’s not been in day-to-day club football for a while but I don’t necessarily think that’s a big consideration.

Playing games?

JOSE Mourinho accused his Manchester United players of putting their Champions League qualification at risk by playing “Playstation football” against Basal, this week.

It made me think about a few of my Colchester team-mates, who are massive gamers.

One of the team coaches we had for away games had television and games consoles built into it and that was unsurprisingly, very popular.

I’m not into it really but Tom Lapslie and Sean Murray are all big gamers and Drey Wright is the one to beat with things like that.

He’s pretty hot on Fifa – and he makes sure he lets everyone know that, too!

This time next month, Rodney...

LIKE a lot of other people, I’m really looking forward to watching the lost Only Fools and Horses episode that’s been discovered.

I might only be 25 but I loved watching the antics of Del Boy and Rodney, when I was growing up.

In my view, two of the funniest TV comedy moments have come from Only Fools and Horses, with the “chandelier” and “falling through the bar” episodes.

My brother is a massive fan of it – he would only need to watch a minute or two of one given episode and he’d be able to tell you the name of it.

I don’t think they make them like that anymore and programmes like Only Fools and Horses, Fawlty Towers and Blackadder are absolute classics.

The only modern-day comedy I think gets close to them is Gavin and Stacey.

Sing when you're winning...

THIS weekend is the first overnight away trip we’ll have since we made our five new signings on transfer deadline day – which means them undergoing a strict initiation.

That means they will be doing some singing, which will be interesting!

It will be all five of them, so I think there’ll be a bit of a show going on!

Perhaps they could all sing together like a boy band but if that happens, we’ll be asking for a bit more than the normal verse and chorus!

I might be wrong but I don’t expect them to be in the same league as One Direction!