Colchester United Head Coach, Matt Bloomfield has praised his side for their character to not lie down and take a draw and has looked ahead to the match against Barrow AFC.
The U’s will be looking to start February in the same way that they ended January on Saturday, with a win against promotion chasing Barrow. After an incredibly busy January, with six games and eight signings, things are looking good for Bloomfield’s side.
The U’s are coming into this game following a 2-1 victory away at Hartlepool where Alex Newby managed to score a late winner enabling the U’s to take all three points back to North Essex. Head Coach, Matt Bloomfield, was extremely happy with his teams resilience and wants to give the fans something to cheer about on Saturday.
“I need to be balanced in my opinion, it was the end of a long week, it was a long trip up to Hartlepool, we’d had a tough game on the Tuesday evening against Salford, so all of those elements do come into it. There’s different tactical elements as well but, I maintain that we want to keep striving for improvement, there’s absolutely no let up for us in terms of striving for excellence at all times. What was excellent about last week was the character and the desire of the players, the togetherness, the resilience, and the willingness to find a way to win the game and that doesn’t always come from the first eleven. We saw last Saturday a big impact from the bench with John and Matty Jay and Alex Newby in terms of the winning goal. So, I think the squad element of modern football is actually really important, especially going to five subs, doesn’t mean you always want to use them but at the same time they can have a big impact, so that was a very pleasing element of the weekend.
“It’s worth saying that Barrow are a team we respect and the qualities that they bring in attacking areas, they’ve got some really good players, some really energetic players, some good pace in attacking areas and we know the high energy that they will bring on Saturday, I know Pete [Wild] personally, the Barrow Manager, he’s one of life’s good guys, He’s a really good man and I wish him the best at all times apart from the game on Saturday where we’re going to be the best of enemies. They’re coming off the back of a defeat last night [Tuesday] they’re going to be a wounded animal, theyre going to be bounce back, but of course we want to put on a show in front of our home fans. We want a home win, we want to make sure that we’re giving them something to cheer about and we’ll certainly be doing our best to do that.”