Chris Day in action for Boro against the Us. Photo: Alan Millard.

In-form keeper says experienced heads were the key as 10-man Boro held Colchester on Tuesday night

GOALKEEPER Chris Day says the resilience shown on Tuesday night to earn a point against Colchester United owed much to the experience of some of the older heads in the dressing room.

Boro started the match brightly against the Us, but Jordan Slew’s dismissal just before half-time effectively ended any hope of earning all three points. However Day, who kept his third clean sheet in a row, says the players knew they could still salvage something from the game at half-time.

“When the red card happened I think if you would have offered us a clean sheet we would have probably bitten your hand off,” Day told the Comet. “It was a hard-earned point in the end and credit to the lads in front for working so hard.

“We came in [at half-time] and the lads that have been around the place a while knew what we could do – knew that it needed a rearguard action and a lot of energy which there was plenty of. The old faces just looked around at each other and knew we needed a few big performances and I think we got that.

“It wasn’t all one-way traffic, though, and the game did open up for a period and we had chances as well. (Scott) Lairdy had a good chance in which he didn’t hit the target and he’s disappointed with that. But he can take many, many compliments out of his performance – apart from that – tonight.

“It looked promising early on, and we forced Ben Williams into a couple of stops in the first 10 minutes and I thought we could have got something if we kept turning the screw but Colchester are on a good run themselves at the moment.”