Neil Aspin takes the positives from Port Vale draw with Colchester

Posted Sunday, January 28, 2018 by PA

Port Vale boss Neil Aspin was happy to settle for a point after his side scored a late equaliser to earn a 2-2 draw with Colchester in Sky Bet League Two.

Vale had to twice come from behind to deny a Colchester side that looked in control for the majority of the game.

Aspin was content with the result after conceding goals from defensive errors.

“I thought we started the game in the first 10 minutes quite well, conceded a bad goal and then conceded an even worse goal right on half-time,” he said.

“There is no game going to be easy from now to the end of the season. We certainly deserved something from the game but the two goals we gave away are really bad.

“If you look at the second goal, there are five mistakes in it, so we gave ourselves a mountain to climb.

“But instead of being negative as I have been on a couple of occasions, I will take the positives in the fact the players kept going and deserved to get something from the game.”

Aspin was indebted to Dave Worrall after Colchester had twice taken the lead.

The visitors took the lead on 12 minutes when Courtney Senior’s cross bobbled and found its way into the back of the net.

Vale equalised on 32 minutes when Worrall brought the ball down and fired low and hard with his left foot to beat Sam Walker at the near post.

Colchester went into the break ahead when Sam Szmodics found Drey Wright in the box and his shot hit goalkeeper Rob Lainton but still found the back of the net deep into first-half stoppage time.

Worrall again found the back of the net two minutes from time when he turned in Luke Hannant’s low shot that looked to be heading wide.

Colchester boss John McGreal said: “It is two points dropped in a game that we should have won but I can take that on the chin.

“We were comfortable for most of the second half and we managed to generally deal with everything until the last couple of minutes when we played the lad onside and it was a goal.

“We knew that they would come at us in the second half and would be putting balls in but for most of it we were comfortable.

“The second goal should have been a winner for us and it was good for Drey Wright to score.

“He has had a newborn in the week so it will be good for his family to know he has scored his first goal in a number of games. He needed that goal and it was a good goal for him.

“I have to give credit to Port Vale. There are a lot of experienced players in the group that were putting the ball in from all angles. They kept coming at us and we played their lad onside.”