‘Delighted’ Chris Porter overtakes Kurtis Guthrie as Colchester United’s top goalscorer

Porter’s first-half brace, against Luton on Saturday, took the experienced frontman up to 13 goals for 2016/17, overtaking fellow forward Guthrie (12) in the goalscoring ranks.

“It’s taken a while (to overtake Guthrie), but I’m delighted to be the top leading goalscorer at the minute,” said Porter.

“I hadn’t scored for a while (before Saturday), so I was beginning to get worried about getting into a goal drought.”

Indeed, before Saturday, Porter’s last goal was in another 2-1 home win, against Hartlepool United, on February 25.

Ironically, Porter’s main challenger for the Colchester golden boot, Guthrie, also scored that day, but was then stretchered off in injury-time when he ruptured his ankle ligaments, ruling him out for the remainder of the season.

“Kurtis is gutted to be injured, but that’s happened to a lot of our players this season,” added Porter, who has also been in the treatment room for spells this season.

“At one point, I think we had 14 first-team players out injured.

“I’ve never experienced anything like it in my career and the lads who have had to come in on short notice, like Cameron James, have been great.”

Following Saturday’s victory, and ahead of the weekend’s trip to Notts County, Colchester sit in 10th position in League Two, two points short of the play-off positions.

“All teams get injuries,” added Porter.

“We’ve been really unlucky that we’ve had so many, and I’m sure if everyone had been fit, we’d be even higher in the league this season.

“More lads will come back though, and I thought Tom Eastman was fantastic (against Luton) considering he’d been out for so long.

“Hopefully some of the others will drip-feed back into the team now as they recover.”

With seven games to go, Colchester are certainly targeting a top seven finish, and three points at Notts County would help them achieve that. “We’ve got to go there and get another three points,” added Porter.