Danny Cowley exclusive interview: Colchester head coach on his side’s turnaround and why ‘anything is possible’ this season | Football News

When Danny Cowley took over on January 4 2024, Colchester were only five points above the Sky Bet League Two relegation zone. In the end, the U’s survived by just a three-point margin.

Last season, they flipped it and finished 10th, outside the play-offs by the same margin. At present, the same margin is keeping them outside of the top seven.

But Cowley’s side have won 10 of their last 16 games, and there are still 20 to play. As of January 24, Sky Bet have them priced at 11/4 to be promoted and end a 10-season run in the fourth tier.

These are exciting times in Essex, but they have come after a testing start.

With 10 games gone, Colchester had won just once and drawn 1-1 no fewer than five times.

“We had some real challenges with injury at the start of the season, and we are a very small squad,” Cowley explains.

“We don’t have loads of depth, so we need our key players fit.

“We lost Jack Payne and Ben Perry, who are two key midfielders. Dom Gape was out as well, so we’ve been decimated in that midfield area. We haven’t had our captain, Tom Flanagan, since November, either.

“I’ve managed for 17 years and normally you can sense it and you can feel it, and by this time of the season, you pretty much know where your team are going to end up.

“With this group, you’re just not sure because we have to be lucky and we have to stay on the right side of injuries, and probably we have to stay on the right side of the January transfer window because we have so many good young players and there’s so many clubs that are keen to take them.

“If we can do those things, then genuinely anything is possible for this group.”

Cowley is as personable as managers come. He is living his dream, too. It is less than a decade since he and his brother Nicky took their first steps into EFL management with Lincoln.

The privilege of working in professional football will never be lost on him.

As such, he speaks with such enthusiasm when he discusses the current squad he has at his disposal.

“We’re probably the youngest group that I’ve had. It’s great fun every day!

“They’ve got energy, enthusiasm a shed load of athleticism and they want to get better. They’re humble boys that just want to improve.

“When you see the young players working really hard at their game every day, when they’re that age, they can kind of improve in front of your very eyes. That is so exciting for us.

“Some of them are living it for the first time, but also we have some experienced senior boys that are just incredible with them and can really be good role models and keep leading the way in terms of how to live as a professional footballer.

“The balance in the group is always so important because when you recruit, naturally you’re trying to find balance in terms of playing profiles and positions, but you’re also trying to find a balance socially.

“The group like each other and they enjoy spending time with each other. From my experience, when you can get a group that connect and that get on, it is so powerful.”

Cowley recently reached 100 games in charge at Colchester, which is more than he managed in both of his previous jobs at Portsmouth and Huddersfield.

He acknowledges he and Nicky are “builders”.

“The longer we are at a club, the easier we find it to have success,” he says. “Time helps you in every industry, in every walk of life, and certainly in football.

“Once you can get through a certain amount of windows, then you can get a little bit of stability and structure and start building from the bottom up.”

Right now, though, things are not quite that straightforward.

“We’ve got a brilliant owner in Robbie Cowling, who genuinely has the club’s best interests at heart. He’s been at the club for 20 years and done a remarkable job.

“It’s been quite clear for a period of time now that he’s looking to sell, just looking to pass the baton on. Ultimately, he wants his final decision to be his best decision.

“As a consequence, we are stripping back to try to make the club as sustainable and as attractive as a result. I genuinely think Robbie’s doing that for all the right reasons because he is so motivated that he needed to find the right person.

“He could have easily sold to the first person and walked away, but he’s worked so hard at this football club for so many years, and the community and the people are so important to him that he’s not going to make this decision lightly.

“He’s going to find the very, very best owner, and I have a huge amount of respect for him and his work ethic and a lot of trust in him to find the best decision for the football club.”

As he discusses the topic of ownership, Cowley inadvertently launches into a sales pitch. A pretty good one at that.

“We know there’s a lot of interested parties, and there should be, because let me tell you, Colchester United, wow, it has so much potential.

“We feel really connected with our support base. The club is in a brilliant part of the world – it’s literally a football hotbed, just half an hour outside of London.

“We’ve got a fantastic academy, a Cat 2 academy that has just been a conveyor belt of young players year after year after year.

“We have a brilliant stadium, a beautiful pitch and a fantastic training ground with so much potential as well.”

Needless to say, he is excited for the now and for what lies ahead.

“It’s two years that we’ve been here now, but we still very much feel we’re in the infancy of this project and we’re just so super excited for what the future holds.

“The people are connecting, and maybe the real diehard Colchester United supporters are starting to believe. The crowds are growing and growing; I think we’ve gone from 2,000 to now regularly playing in front of 5,000.

“We’re an exciting team to watch and we have a lot going for us.

“This group are all fighting really hard for the cause, which definitely makes us proud. You can sense our supporters can see a group that are so proud to wear the shirt and to wear the badge.

“If we keep trying to get better and keep growing the connection with the supporters, we’re going to be just fine, I’m pretty sure.”

Watch Colchester vs Grimsby in Sky Bet League Two live on Sky Sports+ on Tuesday night; kick-off 7.45pm