MATT Bloomfield is urging his Colchester United players to move on quickly from their defeat at Newport County AFC.

The U's dropped into the League Two relegation zone after losing 1-0 at Rodney Parade, on Saturday.

Colchester's players will today begin preparing for tomorrow's vital home clash with Crawley Town, who lie three points above them in the table.

And head coach Bloomfield insists he will learn from the Exiles loss and move forward quickly.

Bloomfield said: "No-one can afford to dwell on it.

"If you live in the past, then you're forgetting about what's to come.

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"All we can do is affect the future and we can only affect what we're doing right here and now.

"We'll reassess the game and I'll be watching it back straight away.

"I'll be taking our lessons and learning.

"We'll move this place forward – we know we will.

"We’re positive about that.

"We know what we've got in the building and we know what we need to do to keep moving forward.

“Of course we want to get better, of course we want to win matches.

“But we’re looking forward to Tuesday night against Crawley.

“If we dwell on this, then we’re going to miss an opportunity to go and perform on Tuesday and we’re certainly not going to do that.”

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Meanwhile, Bloomfield has thanked the Colchester fans who made the trip to Newport, at the weekend.

A total of 193 U's fans made the trip to South Wales to support their team, on a disappointing day for the visitors.

“Thank you to our supporters," said Bloomfield.

“They’ve travelled a long way.

“We have the luxury of staying overnight which I know they don’t have so they’ve had an early morning and a long trip down to support us and they’ve come away with nothing to cheer.

“When I walked through the door, I preached about us being together, teamwork and getting this club together and that’s what I’ll continue to do, moving forward.

“No matter what happens on the football pitch, the supporters have paid their money, they’ve done the hours’ driving, they’ve come to support us.

“It’s a long way to come in not great weather and we thank them for that.

“Whilst I’m here, we’ll make sure we go and thank them every single game.”