Colchester United head coach John McGreal on Carlisle United win

COLCHESTER United head coach John McGreal praised his side’s ‘brilliant performance’ after they soared back into the League Two play-off places with a 3-0 win at Carlisle United.

Kwame Poku’s brace and Luke Norris’s header gave the U’s victory at Brunton Park this afternoon, lifting them up to sixth spot in the table in McGreal’s 200th game in charge of Colchester.

McGreal told BBC Essex: “It was my 200th game (in charge of Colchester) and it does get you thinking about your three-and-a-half year tenure at the club and talking about games that have been pivotal and today has just worked out fantastically well.

“It’s also my daughter’s 18th birthday today as well – I’ve got to give her a mention and we’ve been away for a couple of days.

“It’s a brilliant performance and it’s not about me – it’s about the boys having a point to prove, because we felt hard done by last week (against Cheltenham).

“I know there were little bits said after the game but I felt in the first half we should have been a couple of goals to the good (against Cheltenham) – we felt that having watched the video back.

“We more than made up for the attacking third entries that we made last week and we looked a real potent threat today.”

It was the perfect response for Colchester following their disappointing 2-0 home defeat at the hands of Cheltenham Town, last weekend.

U’s boss McGreal made three changes to his starting line-up against the Cumbrians, bringing in Luke Norris, Frank Nouble and Tom Eastman and they helped to contribute to an important victory in their quest to make the play-offs.

“This is a tough place to come,” added McGreal.

“(Carlisle manager) Chris (Beech) has done unbelievable – he’s had one defeat in nine, prior to today.

“He’s had a turnover of bodies, they’re playing a different way and there’s a style of football and an identity.

“We knew they’d be up for it today; we knew that they’d have a suspension with big Webster but we had one ourselves with big Omar (Sowunmi), so we had to contend with that.

“But I thought Easty (Tom Eastman) slotted back into that position brilliantly well and I just felt after last week (against Cheltenham) and that latter part of the second half where they went 2-0 up, the two boys coming on might work a bit of a treat today knowing the size of the pitch and knowing that we can get (Kwame) Poku, Callum Harriott and our full-backs involved in the game and it worked out that way.

“Credit to the players for taking on that information.

“Even prior to the goal, we were standing there thinking ‘we have to get a goal here’ because of the dominance of the performance really.

“The goal came and when one came along, another one came along straight after to give us that little bit of a cushion.”