Ironically it was Preston who made the early run with Chris Robertson having an early goal disallowed for offside and George Miller, making his first senior start, thundering a shot against the crossbar and it seems that Preston could be on for the full three points but as ever it wouldn't prove to be enough as Colchester took the lead from a well worked corner with Gillespie unmarked to fire bast Stuckmann from close range. Unfortunately Preston never really recovered from this setback and just after halftime the advantage was doubled after Coutts handled in the area and Gillespie duly converted to make it 2-0 and kill the game off. While Preston did create some chances, there was never any serious threat to Ben Williams in the Colchester goal as it was a case of good play up to the penalty area and then not knowing what to do when they got there and it always lead to a clearance or the ball going to the keeper. In the end Colchester added icing to the cake late on when Colchester broke and Andy Bond drilled past Stuckmann to make it 3-0 and round off a fairly convincing performance by the home side.
The result means that Westley has won only one of his first 7 games which is a worrying start, but it's not something that wasn't unexpected when he was appointed manager in January but it is disappointing to see a section of fans already against him and demanding instant results although it is obvious to the majority that Westley has got a massive task in turning around a club that has been in decline arguably since Billy Davies left in 2006 and only had a small fillip with a Play Off Semi Final in 2009 but this was only really delaying the inevitable and this Play Off push crippled the finances in the process and is one of the big reasons why we are 15th in the table at the moment.
While the Play Offs are now all but over, we aren't actually safe from relegation yet as Preston currently lie 8 points above the drop zone, however I would say it is extremely unlikely that we are going to be relegated as I would say we only need 10 more points to be safe and I reckon that we should get them in this month alone as on the whole I do believe that things are slowly getting better despite yesterdays defeat, Preston never play well against Colchester apart from the 7-0 win in the FA Cup back in early 2010. It is also good to see Westley giving some of the younger players a chance as Danny Devine was named on the bench and he gave George Miller a first proffesional start and by all accounts he didn't have a bad game and was unlucky not to score on his debut. On the whole our defence has been improving but it is important that we get stability there or else results like yesterday will be repeated, we don't have bad defensive players, but it is clear that they need unity and decisiveness on how they operate. It's also good to see Iain Hume coming off the bench again as he continues his comeback from injury and this will provide a massive boost to the team as it is clear that we have sorely missed him and hopefully Neil Mellor will also be back soon but it seems to be a complete mystery as to what his happening to him as nothing seems to have been said over the last few weeks but it is clear that we do need to be more sharp going forward and it has been coming on slowly over the last few weeks but I'm very confident that this should snowball and that given time Westley will turn this club around, he certainly has my backing.
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