Colchester United have been in the top three for virtually the whole of the last two months, give or take a few days, but the hard work starts now.

Skipper Luke Prosser provided the winning goal as the U’s made a big statement, with their 1-0 victory at second-placed MK Dons last Saturday.

But Prosser knows, more than anyone else, that the U’s have to knuckle down and keep performing to the top of their game, of they are going to sustain an automatic promotion push during the second half of the season.

Part one yielded 41 points from 23 games; part two starts today, with the visit of mid-table Stevenage.

“We are right up there, halfway through the season,” enthused Prosser.

“Even after the previous game, at Carlisle (4-0 defeat), we sat down on the Monday morning to discuss where we were at.

“I imagine every single Colchester fan – if you said we would be third at Christmas and on Christmas Day – then everyone would have bitten your hand off.

“We are the same, as players. We know we could probably be two or three points better off, but equally we might have been a bit lucky in some games not to drop points.

“There’s still 23 games to go, so we are only halfway, but we find ourselves in a good position.

“However, there’s still a long, long way to go.

“The MK Dons game was the best one you could ask for, after the Carlisle defeat.

“It’s given us a great springboard going into the two home games, and our home form has been decent this season.

“We knew that we had to pick up our away form, if we wanted to stay up there at the top end of the table. Now we have two massive games coming up (against Stevenage and then Morecambe on Saturday). We want to cash in on the MK Dons result. We don’t want this go to waste.

“Nothing is won over Christmas, but there are five games over this period of 14 days or so, which is 15 points.

“There are a lot of points to play for and it’s vital we get a good Christmas period, and hopefully the gap will then get a bit bigger.

We want to stay in the top three, which is where we’ve been for much of the season. But we must keep our feet on the ground,” added Prosser.