Colchester United SA chairman Jon Burns gives his U's views

I was pretty disappointed with the display last Saturday against Stockport.

It looked nervous, over cautious in its team selection and it was higher in the unforced error statistics than any professional League Two team would want to be.

U’s fans are now looking nervously over the shoulders again and wondering where the next goal, and more optimistically, the next win will come from.

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There is lots of work to do at short notice for our new coaching team to do. They will need to find out quickly who will be the players who want to turn the results around and work hard for it.

And this will not be what is said on the training ground and in the changing room, it will be by actions they see. Heads up and not down, and a distinct lack of basic mistakes.

They would have been pleased with how the team played up in Yorkshire the week before, but take Arthur Read and Will Greenidge from it, plus one or two from the subs bench, and the U’s home fans were again made to suffer and wonder how and why people like me feel so positive after an away game.

Home fans are being short changed in terms of results and if this is not fixed next week, we may yet struggle to finish in a safe position.

And to make matters worse, we head to the league leaders tomorrow who have more than double our points and goals and will have a sold out home crowd cheering them on.

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I am buoyed by the knowledge that the U’s have not lost there in the last five visits.

There are good memories saved by our supporters from those trips. If we can silence their home following, as was successfully achieved at Bradford, then put away a couple of chances which they hopefully hand us by their over confidence against us, then there is a glimmer of a chance of a shock result.

Anything is possible, but what I want this time is not to just feel positive after an away performance, but to feel happy that we have come away with at least a hard fought point which we desperately need.

Sadly results will have to be achieved without Kwesi Appiah who is sadly out with another injury. Another decent player who is burdened by bad luck.

That luck has to change one day though, and I would have no problem if the U’s gambled on that and kept him with us for longer. I also had no problem with Freddie Sears being brought back into the matchday environment, but how rusty must he have been feeling?

For me though, Freddie is the type of player though that really excels when the formation and his attacking team mate is exactly right for him.

Yet another conundrum for Ben Garner and his team to understand.

I am really hoping that whatever excluded Samson Tovide from the squad last week is now resolved. However it now seems that he has to get through three older attackers to get anywhere near the team sheet which for me is a shame. Likewise I hope Arthur Read is available again.

READ MORE: Jayden Fevrier returning to familiar territory with U's this weekend

Then it comes to left back, or left wing back, with Wood unable to play against his registered club, will Kazeem come back into the fray or will they turn to Fevrier who performed that role last week?

Fevrier is rapid and more attack minded, and I am not sure how much defensive football he has played so it will be interesting call.

So plenty of puzzles for our coaches and indeed players to have been worked out this week. I am hoping to see a hugely improved performance tomorrow.

The U’s will have a strong following from Colchester to get behind them, so there will be no excuses in terms of support. Can the players turn it on though and show what they are made of? Let’s hope so.

Best of luck U’s and an advance thank you for your support at Orient U’s fans.