John Ward has insisted it will be easy to lift his Colchester United players for tonight’s trip to play Bristol Rovers.

As he prepares to head back to one of his former clubs, the U’s boss is looking to get his current side back on track.

Colchester have stayed in the West Country for this evening’s game at the Memorial Stadium, following their disappointing defeat at bottom club Plymouth Argyle.

The U’s trained on Sunday and Monday before travelling to Bristol, where they will take on a Pirates side languishing in the bottom four.

Colchester’s 2-1 loss at Plymouth last weekend has left them seven points adrift of the play-off places in League One.

The defeat means that they have now lose eight of their last ten away games, scoring only twice.

However, U’s manager Ward still has confidence in his players.

And he has backed them to respond positively to their setback at Home Park.

Ward said: “It’ll be easy to pick them up - they’ll be ok.

“They were disappointed with the Plymouth defeat as much as I am.

“But they’re also very honest and they’ll know that they could have done better than they did.

“I didn’t say much to them immediately after the game, because I wanted to think about what I said to them.”

See Tuesday's Gazette for more on this story and a full preview of Colchester United's game with Bristol Rovers.