‘We spurned opportunities’

JOEY Barton believes Bristol Rovers should have been more clinical and made easier work of beating Colchester in the second round of the Papa John’s EFL Trophy on Wednesday night, but he is happy to be a step closer to a Wembley final, writes Sam Frost.

The Gas beat League Two strugglers Colchester 2-1 in Essex, but they made hard work of their victory. James Connolly put Rovers ahead early in the second half and the hosts posed little threat, but the visitors were profligate going forward, meaning the hosts were still in the tie and they were level seven minutes from time when Freddie Sears scored a deflected equaliser.

The prospect of penalties loomed large, but substitute Harvey Saunders saved Rovers the stress with a winner in the fifth minute of stoppage-time, prodding in from close range, pictured.

The victory puts Barton’s men into the last 16 of the competition, three wins from a possible Wembley final. The manager was pleased with the result, but he saw plenty of room for improvement in the performance.

“It should have been safer,” Barton said. “We had the game in control. We were guilty of spurning a number of really good opportunities on the counter-attack to get that second goal to put the tie beyond them.

“Credit to Colchester, they were brave and played a lot more aggressively in terms of putting bodies forward when they were one behind. They got their rewards, a bit of a defensive mix-up. We exposed ourselves and we were a little unlucky with the deflection and James (Belshaw) has got no chance.

“Credit to the lads for picking themselves up and going on and winning the tie and not requiring penalties.”

Rovers were forced to change their goalkeeper 23 minutes from time with Anssi Jaakkola going off injured and first-choice Belshaw, who had been given the night off, needed to replace him. With Jed Ward working his way back from a broken hand, an injury in the goalkeeping department would be problematic, but Barton shared a positive update on Jaakkola’s fitness.

“He’s okay, he got kneed first half in the leg,” Barton said. “He’s got a bit of a dead leg which stiffened up and it affected his kicking. Belly goes on and pretty much the first thing he does is pick the ball out of the back of the net. But I felt on the balance of play it was a game we should have won.”