ABSOLUTELY brilliant.

That was how Colchester United boss Matt Bloomfield described Samson Tovide’s performance at Crewe Alexandra after the teenager made a surprise return to their starting line-up.

The 18-year-old forward was handed his first league start for more than a year at Gresty Road and performed impressively after leading their attack, in the 1-0 defeat.

Tovide was handed his first league appearance under Bloomfield and the U’s boss says he had no hesitation in giving the youngster his chance to shine.

Bloomfield said: “Samson’s been doing great in training.

“If you look at the team, I love young footballers, I love giving them an opportunity to play.

“If you look at Junior’s performances recently, I thought Ossama Ashley was excellent again (at Crewe) in the middle of the park.

“But that’s not to take anything away from experienced boys.

“I think they’re doing their bit and helping these boys through and Samson was absolutely brilliant (at Crewe).

“He gave us energy at the top end of the pitch and he’s going to be a good player.

“He just needs to keep his feet on the ground, keep learning; we’ll keep working with him and hopefully guide him forward.”

Colchester remain bottom of the League Two table, following their defeat at Crewe.

However, it was a much-improved performance by the U's, who registered more shots on target than their hosts only to lose out to a late goal.

“One thing I was pleased about was that we didn’t leave our training week on the training ground," said Bloomfield.

“We took it into the game and 99 per cent of the game was good from us but unfortunately, the moment that mattered went against us.

“When I came into the building, I said I wanted my teams to play with high energy and high press.

“I want us to be entertaining to watch, I want us to take the game to the opposition whether that’s home or away and I think we backed that up (at Crewe).

“We made them go long, which is what we wanted them to do.

"We know that they want to play the game with the ball on the floor and I was really pleased with the energy that we showed and the application of our boys to take the tactics that we’d worked on in the week into the game."

Colchester are next in action when they host Doncaster Rovers, on Saturday.