Colchester United manager Kevin Keen described today’s 3-0 defeat at Essex rivals Southend as “another heroic failure.”

The U’s had to play with 10 men from the 36th minute, when Alex Gilbey was sent off for a late lunge at Ryan Leonard.

The 10-man visitors held out well, until former Us midfielder Anthony Wordsworth broke the deadlock in the 81st minute, with a low shot from the edge of the box.

Southend added two late goals from Adam Barrett and Sam McQueen, to make the score-line very cruel on the U’s.

“We got done in the last 10 minutes,” rued manager Keen.

“I thought we played well with 10 men, for so long, but often those last 10 minutes can be so difficult.

“So I suppose you could say that it was another heroic failure.

“I thought the 10 men were fantastic, and you wouldn’t have know that it was 11 versus 10.

“I thought we were still very much in the game,” added Keen.

Referring to Gilbey’s red card, Keen said: “It was a poor tackle.

“But the referes couldn’t wait to pull out his red card.

“We are all devastated,” added Keen.