'Poacher's goal' delights Appéré as he follows his words with actions against Colchester

Cobblers striker Louis Appéré was thrilled to follow words with action by scoring the winning goal against Colchester United on Saturday.

Only last week the 23-year-old had spoken of the need to play his part in helping Town turn around their ailing fortunes by scoring more goals. He talked the talk and then walked the walk with an opportunistic finish four minutes before the break in Essex on Saturday, his fifth goal in all competitions this season.

"The ball dropped in the box from a corner, they haven't cleared it quickly enough and I've just snapped onto it and stuck it in,” said Appéré. “Those are the sort of goals that I’ve been looking to try and score – a poacher’s goal.

"I want to add more goals like that to my game so I'm glad to score one today. I felt quite good going into the game but I think it's natural when you score that you get an extra confidence boost so it helped my game.

"I probably should have put another chance away in the second-half, the goalkeeper made a good save, but I’m just glad we’ve held on in the end.”

Appéré confirmed he was taken off in the closing stages due to tiredness after putting in a big shift up top, and it was a nervous watch from the bench as Cobblers just about clung on.

"It's a big win,” he admitted.” We spoke after the Grimsby game about getting back on track and we have done that today with three points.

"We had to dig deep. It wasn't nice watching from the bench because we were hanging on a little. It could have been a bit more comfortable, we had chances to score two or three and potentially put the game to bed earlier, but they had a chance or two at the end as well.

"I'm just so happy we've got the three points. Kingy made a great save at the end and that's another clean sheet for him and he's been brilliant for us and the fans were great as well and they helped us see it over the line.

"We're looking to go on a run now. We feel we are due a run but when we have dropped points, we haven’t panicked. We know how good we are and how strong a team we have and now hopefully we can put a run together.”