BEN Garner admits his young Colchester United side must have a stronger mindset if they are to move up the League Two table.

The U’s have lost four of their opening five league games this season and were beaten 1-0 at Walsall, at the weekend.

Isaac Hutchinson’s spectacular strike midway through the second half won it for the Saddlers against a Colchester side with an average age of 23, at the Poundland Bescot Stadium.

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Garner was unhappy with his team’s overall performance and the U’s head coach says they need to be tougher psychologically if they are to achieve their targets, this season.

Garner said: “Our mindset has got to be a lot stronger.

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“We’ve got players that we’ve brought in that we now need to get up to speed and add to the squad and enhance it.

“It’s a pure mentality thing.

“We have to not take our foot off the gas in any game and we have to have complete focus and complete intensity, at all times.

“With the exception of the Gillingham game, we’re a long way from where we want to be but we have shown what we can do.

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“We’ve seen how good we can be and I think that’s the frustration for me.

“We’re not hitting those levels consistently enough but we will do.

“There’s a lot of young players in there who are learning the game and developing on the job and it’s sink or swim time now.

“We’ve got to see which ones can do it and survive and kick on and we’ve got to be ruthless enough to see which ones can’t.”

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Colchester now have back-to-back home games, starting with the visit of Tranmere Rovers to the JobServe Community Stadium, on Saturday.

The U’s currently sit third from bottom in the table, level on points with Tranmere although Garner’s side do have a game in hand.

“As a club, we’ve been down the bottom for three seasons now and we want to change that,” added Garner.

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“We want to push up the table and I thought the Gillingham win would give us a platform to do that.

“It hasn’t and we need to win (against Tranmere) but it’s early days and there’s a lot of games to be played.

“I think we’ve got more than enough to be competitive in this division but ultimately, that needs to be shown.

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“It’s all very well thinking we’ve got it and knowing what’s in the building but that has to go on the pitch on a Saturday and that has to result in points.

“The work in the week was good (ahead of the Walsall game) and the intensity was fine.

“I need to look at why that hasn’t transferred into the matchday.

“I’ve seen the goal back and there are five mistakes.

“It was a super strike (by Hutchinson) but we’ve given the ball away really poorly.

“We have the chance to win it back and we don’t, we then give it away again on the edge of the box, we then don’t get pressure on the ball – that’s why it’s in the back of our net.”