Chris Porter admitted that Saturday’s shocker at Accrington Stanley was a strong contender for Colchester United’s worst performance of the season.

The U’s were second best against hosts who had begun the day just one point clear of the relegation zone, and so were battling for their league Two lives.

And the U’s were certainly out-battled inside Stanley’s cramped Crown Ground, where a small crowd of 1,310 witnessed the U’s demise.

“It was plain to see that we under-performed, especially in the first half,” confessed Porter.

“I feel for the fans, to be honest, because they’ve come all this way and we’ve thrown in a performance like that!

“We haven’t produced many performances like that this season. There haven’t been many of them, but that’s definitely – if not THE worst – then it’s one of the worst performances of the season.

“So apologies to the fans for that performance,” added Porter, with reference to the 208 U’s fans who braved the round trip of 510 miles from Essex.

Porter had missed the U’s last couple of games with a hip injury, and was only expected to play a few minutes at the end of Saturday’s match.

However, instead he was unleashed as a 26th minute substitute, due to a serious-looking knee injury to fellow front-man Denny Johnstone.

U’s boss John McGreal revealed: “Denny is now on crutches.

“He is struggling with his knee, so that’s another body down, as such. He can’t put any weight on it, which is not a good sign.

McGreal was very disappointed with his side’s overall display, following on from the midweek home defeat to Crawley.

“We could have nicked a point at the end. There were some unbelievable balls flashed over to that far post and near post, but we weren’t able to get on the end of them,” explained McGreal.

“But I’m really, really disappointed with that performance.

“That wasn’t good enough – we started well for the first five minutes or so, but we then just sat back in and let things happen, in and around us.

“We had no intent in our attacking play, but also in our basic defending, which was really disappointing, watching from the touchline.

“In the first half we were really poor, but hopefully we’ve sorted it out now and we will go again on Tuesday.

“Hopefully, we can give the fans something to sing about against Wycombe,” added McGreal, with reference to tomorrow night’s home game.