Danny Cowley: Notts County win was one of my favourite Colchester performances

Colchester manager Danny Cowley listed his side’s 3-1 win at high-flying Notts County among his favourite performances as a manager.

Having fallen behind to Kane Vincent-Young’s own goal, the U’s fought back through Harry Anderson, Micah Mbick and Will Goodwin to seal a first win at Meadow Lane since 2002.

And they did so despite losing captain Tom Flanagan to a suspected knee injury after just 15 minutes as he challenged Jacob Bedeau.

“I’ve managed a long time, 17 seasons I think, and lots of games, but that was one of my favourite performances,” he said.

“When you consider how much has gone against us, with four of our five or six midfielders out.

“We have to come here against probably one of the best possession-based teams in the league and play with 4-4-2, which is not ideal.

“We have a centre-half in midfield and then our captain (Flanagan) goes off after 15 minutes. And I just thought the way everybody just stepped up and fought for each other was incredible.”

It was a fifth win from seven in the league, following on from a 2-0 win at table-topping Walsall last weekend, and lifted Cowley’s side up to 13th, within three points of the play-off spots.

“It’s been a good few weeks for us on the road. I think we’ve picked up some really good results against some top teams,” he added.

“Now we have to dust ourselves down, enjoy tonight, and then prepare for a home game, because we’ve actually played well at home but we haven’t got the value for our home performances.”

Notts County boss Martin Paterson blamed defensive mistakes for a “humbling” result as the Magpies suffered a first league defeat at Meadow Lane since August.

“We took the lead at home and then we have to have the mindset to go and take over,” he said.

“I thought we had chances, good bits of play, but the story of the game is relinquishing three really poor individual error goals, which I couldn’t quite make sense of.

“If you look at the game on two sides, we looked dangerous and had lots of chances.

“We just didn’t score enough, and we made really, really poor errors to concede.

“So, you’re not going to get anything out of the game against a Colchester team who are up there in terms of the way they’ve put their squad together.”

Paterson wants a quick response after a third defeat in 14 league matches dropped them to fifth, and with promotion rivals Walsall and MK Dons the next visitors to Meadow Lane.

“We have to look forward to them, we have to be better. This is a result that’s a humbling one,” he said.

“You’ve got to take it on the chin, you’ve got to own it and you’ve got to get back onto the training field and work harder. We’ve had a decent run, but this was so far off our defensive levels it’s untrue.”