WAYNE Brown believes Colchester United's fans can play a 'massive part' in helping them make the most of the forthcoming home games.

The U's host Carlisle United in a crunch League Two fixture tomorrow, at the JobServe Community Stadium.

Five of Colchester's next six matches are on home soil, as they battle to pull away from the relegation zone.

And interim boss Brown feels the U's supporters have a part to play in helping them get some vital points on board.

Brown said: “The fans have been immense.

“It’s no coincidence that against Swindon, the lads have kept going against nine men and managed to get an equaliser and the fans played a massive part in that.

“They didn’t stop singing and they were behind the lads constantly.

“We’ve got five home games coming out of six now, so they’re going to play a massive part in the successes that we hopefully get."

Gazette:

Brown believes Colchester's spirited second-half response against Mansfield Town in midweek shows they are changing the mentality of the squad.

The U's were beaten 2-1 at the One Call Stadium by the high-flying Stags, despite a late rally which saw Alan Judge score a stoppage-time free-kick.

It was Colchester's first defeat in five games under Brown.

“We’ve tried to be positive around the group," he said.

"We’ve tried to change the mentality and it’s not easy sometimes, when you’re in that rut of losing games.

“It becomes a bit of a habit and we’ve tried to change things, tweak a few things and change the mentality of the group and it’s worked and it’ll keep working, after that second-half performance.

“If the second half performance was like the first, then we have got to lift the group for Saturday but that’s not the case.

“We’re nice and positive after the game with lots of praise and lots of credit in the way that they went about their business in the second half.

“There’s a lot of positives now to take into Saturday.

“We weren’t at our best in the first half, as good as they are at what they do.

“I felt that there was only one team out there, in the first half.

“As hard as we tried, we didn’t really work smart – we worked hard but we didn’t work smart, at times.

“In the second half, we obviously changed it and I thought the application of the lads was very good and was credit to them, against a good team.

“That was proven in the fact that they had to make changes to personnel and shape.

“We definitely had them penned back in, in certain areas of the game."