JOEY GUDJONSSON believes goalkeeper Alex Smithies more than made up for his error in Town’s 1-1 draw at Colchester.

Smithies was at fault for the U’s early opener, after he allowed striker Steven Gillespie to close down his attempted clearance just outside his own area – and the ball looped into the empty net.

But Smithies showed excellent character to respond to the setback and made some important saves, including a crucial penalty stop in the 89th-minute to deny Colchester midfielder Anthony Wordsworth from the spot.

Gudjonsson said: “Alex knows he made a mistake and that’s all it is – but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s a brilliant goalkeeper.

“He is one of the best goalkeepers in this league, if not the best.

“He’s got a great future ahead of him and we know how good he is and how important to the team he is.

“He made a great save for the pe

nalty and he also made other good saves in the game.”

Gudjonsson said Town are not looking too far forward in their pursuit of automatic promotion.

Simon Grayson’s side lie five points off the top-two places, heading into the game at bottom club Chesterfield tonight.

The Icelandic midfielder added: “We’ll go to Chesterfield in a positive manner and be confident we can get a good result there.

“We want to keep playing games and getting good results and there’s another opportunity at Chesterfield to get a good result and keep on going forward. The most important thing for us now is for us not to be looking too far ahead.

“We’ll be taking one game at a time and trying to keep the pressure on the team in second place.

“We’re confident that we can still make the top two.”

Gudjonsson, who fouled Colchester skipper Kem Izzet to concede the late penalty which was saved by Smithies, feels Town’s point at the Weston Homes Community Stadium could prove vital.

He added: “This could be a massive point for us.

“We knew after conceding so early it was going to be a difficult game.

“They tried to put everybody behind the ball and close all of the gaps for us to play in.

“However, we stuck to our game and kept playing and created a few chances.

“We were never going to give in and we were always going to keep going all the way until the end of the game.”