Steve Evans heaped praise on Colchester United before the U's travel down to face Bristol Rovers in Sky Bet League Two.
The Pirates drew 1-1 with Colchester in the reverse fixture, with Fabrizio Cavegn's opener cancelled out by Micah Mbick's second-half strike, but will know they are coming up against an opponent with form and confidence on their side.
Colchester only won one of their first ten games in the fourth tier to start the 2025/26 season, but have since only lost two out of 13, pushing them to within touching distance of the play-offs. However, Rovers will have plenty of spirit after their start to 2026, thumping Shrewsbury Town away from home before a narrow 4-3 loss to Plymouth Argyle in the Vertu Trophy on Tuesday night.
Speaking to the media before the contest, Evans believes Colchester will be promotion contenders come the end of the season, also discussing the transfer window and training.
PLYMOUTH ARGYLE REFLECTIONS
“I think poor individual errors cost us goals. You can’t score three goals at home and not be successful, whether it be a cup tie or a league game.
“But the facts are always the case in football, that if you make big errors as defenders or midfield players, whatever it is, then the likelihood is that the better opposition you play, the more you'll be punished. We’re playing a team that had a lot of players on the pitch who were in the Championship just a year ago.
“Now they’re in League One, of course, but I think when we’re right, we’ll deal with opponents just like that. Huge respect for them, and we wish them every success going forward in their attempts to go to Wembley.”
POSITIVES IN THE ATTACK
“The forward areas, they’re promising, aren’t they? We’ve got pace, we’ve got trickery, we’ve got movement, we’ve got a fantastic goal scorer in Fabrizio.
“So, from that point of view, we’ve got a lot of pluses there, but it’s a team game at the end of the day, and we’ve still got departments, including that department, to strengthen.”
EXPERIENCED ADDITIONS
“We’ve tried to focus on that. There will be one or two arrivals that are at the younger end of their career or at the start of their career, and that will happen. But the immediate aim is still to, when we can, bring in players that really help the group, bring some experience with them, without being old.
“We don’t want old players, we just want good players. We want players to come and embrace playing for Bristol Rovers, and supporters should be thinking ‘that’s helped us, that’s improved us.’ I don’t think there’s any doubt that the couple of boys who we’ve already brought into the building, for sure, Kofi Balmer and Ryan de Havilland, have proved to us for sure.”
He later added, “It’s never about numbers. It’s about the quality of the player. So, we’re obviously looking at the balance of the squad, and you obviously address performance, you address weaknesses that I show you.
“But from that point of view, we’re trying to strengthen the squad in areas that we feel needed. If that means one more player, two more players, three more players, the beautiful thing is what Darrell found and what I found, you know, the three coaches before found is that you get support here."
PLAYING FOR ROVERS
“There’s pressure playing for Bristol Rovers. Bristol Rovers is a name that, for me, shouldn’t be in League Two. But you are in football, where the pitch decides where you are. It’s about points, isn’t it? Points make prizes for higher levels.
“So, from our point of view, we’ve just got to deal with the here and now. Deal with a real tough game on Saturday, and then look forward to next week to a free week where we can do some work at the training ground because this week’s been good, but it’s been limited because we had the game on Tuesday.
“Most weeks we’ve had games which change the program for players, limiting what we can do. So, we’ve probably put 10 per cent of the work into the players in what we’re trying to achieve, so we need to have two or free weeks, where we can get that extra work in.”
TRAINING FOCUSES
“The complaint that I heard as I went in was that Bristol Rovers don’t score goals. It was quite difficult to win a game, so we immediately tried to address that, but it’s not good scoring lots of goals if you’re shipping them in at the other end, so there’s a whole raft of jobs that we need to do, and we’re working through them now.
“This will really help us, for example, next week it will help us in a defensive organisation, defensive shape and defensive abilities because you have a whole week to work them hard, and that means they’re on the pitch with the ball, not running on the hills.
“So, from our point of view we’ve probably got some players that have adapted really well, and they’ll probably come very quickly at the top of their game, still a bit more to go, but there’s some players that we’re hoping that they’ll have to raise their game and if they don’t raise their game, they’ll pay a price.”
COLCHESTER UNITED PREVIEW
“When Danny Cowley and Nicky Cowley went in there, you expected a promotion this season. You expect a campaign of success. The signings have been really good. Two of them played for me, one of them played for Danny before, Harry Anderson, and of course, Arthur Read has been key for them in the middle of the park. He’s got a wand of a left foot, it’s a wand. He played for me at Stevenage. A great kid as well. I look forward to catching up with those guys.
“But listen, they’ve got exciting wide players with pace and strength, power and a goal scorer as well, so Danny’s put a good squad together. I thought at the start of the season that they would be promotion contenders, and I’ve seen nothing to date that changes that opinion.”
