Well, this is a rare treat isn’t it?

A game on Sky, and as a result, a match report typed minutes after the final whistle. Thanks Sky – a few pints of beer was definitely cheaper than a £40 ticket & travel trip to Colchester, a fairly uninspiring ground in the middle of nowhere.

I’m going to go as far as saying that tonight’s performance was superb, and the result was pretty good too. On another night, it could even be argued that we’d have taken all three points.

It was actually surprisingly difficult to get into the television coverage; largely due to the camera’s insisting on showing Poyet’s mug every 30 seconds, and also because we got to see a Colchester side that played in a stereotypical Adie Boothroyd team manner on a dreadful surface. Basically, “Hooooooooooooooooooof” !

The Albion had a lot of posession, and possibly could have done more with it. Murray was unlucky with a superb header early on, and later on in the half the Colchester keeper pulled off fantastic saves from El-Abd and Calderon. Frustratingly, you can’t help but think that if it had been anyone other than El-abd (Toblerone head, bit of a shortarse) then we might have gone in one nil up. At the other end though, Brezovan was catching everything in the air, and pulled off a smart save from Colchester’s huge bastard up front, as well as making a good take from a scissor kick that would probably have resulted in a goal had it gone a foot either side of him.

At this stage I must make a confession. If you haven’t already noticed, I can’t really remember the names of any of the Colchester players, largely because a) I couldn’t hear much in the pub, and b) I couldn’t really give a monkey’s who they are. But anyway, I digresss.

Glenn Murray was having an interesting game. Boothroyd had clearly given his team instructions to kick him all over the park. He must have been fouled at least 20 times tonight, which was impressive. However, twice he went down in the penalty area, once in either half. To be honest, he was looking for it, but as the ref showed at Leeds, if you’re fouled in the box then you should get a penalty, even if you are making a bit of a meal out of it. Dissappointingly though for the Albion striker, the penalty never materialised. In the second half, Glenn went close again; firstly when he could only just reach a Bennett free kick, and secondly when he cleverly dummied dummed another low ball in, and you’d have hoped someone like Forster would have been waiting to bury it.

That brings me to Forster. Apparently, he’s made up with Gus. But I’m not convinced, with Poyet again bringing on Holroyd and leaving Nicky on the bench. Holroyd ran around a lot, but never really got a chance to make an impression.

In honest, the second half was a bit of an anti-climax. Nothing else really happened – Brezovan looked assured at taking crosses, while the switch to 4-4-2 (the quiet Lua Lua substituted for Holroyd) didn’t make too much difference.

However, at Withdean earlier in the season Colchester were 2 up early on. Today, they didn’t look like scoring, which is a sign of how far things have come. Elphick looked a rock, the full backs looked solid and composed, and El-abd was similarly impressive.

On another day, we could have tucked in a chance up front, but it’s definitely a point gained for the Albion. A Colchester win tonight would have left them breathing on the next of “The” Leeds United, who are choking harder than a man buried 10ft underground at the moment. With performances like this, and with (on paper at least) only Swindon and Southampton left to play in games that most people would probably expect us to lose, you’ve really got to fancy our chances of staying up. Things certainly are looking up, and assuming we can keep on performing like we’ve done in the last 3 weeks or so, then things can only bode for next season, when we’ll hopefully be challenging for a promotion that would see us open Falmer in the Championship.

Sky Sports interviewing Glenn Murray and their Man of the Match Tommy Elphick.