WE promise it not a case of complacency.

That was the message from Colchester United left-back Ben Coker to the dedicated U’s fans who made the lengthy trip down to Devon on Saturday only to witness their side lose 2-1 at crisis club Plymouth.

The Essex side came into the game as heavy favourites following two fine displays and Plymouth having lost their previous six games.

However, a mixture of Colchester not taking their chances and some poor refereeing decisions saw the Pilgrims come out on top.

“I can promise to the fans that we always give our all,” said Coker, who was making his 10th Football League appearance following last summer’s step up from non-league.

“The bunch of lads here always give 100% and there’s no way there was any complacency.”

Instead, the 20-year-old says it was combination of tiredness, poor refereeing and a lack of clinicality which cost the U’s.

He said: “I’m not sure it was a penalty, it was very soft from where I was standing right next to it. I think the fans got in his head a little bit and he tried to even it up for the sending off.

“We were a little bit slow starting, they were pressing on us a little bit and there were a few gaps appearing. We’ve been going 1-0 down a lot lately and it just gives us a little bit much to do sometimes.

“I don’t really know why we’re not as good away from home. Obviously Tuesday was a really good performance and whether some of lads were maybe a little bit tired from that I don’t know?

“Obviously there were a lot of fans here today that got behind them pretty well, but playing any team in this league is always going to be hard because they’ve all got quality.”

He continued: “Now we’ve got to go back to our base in Exeter, regroup and try and get three points on Tuesday (at Bristol Rovers).

“We’ve got to leave the result here. Obviously we’re going to be disappointed for a little while but we’ve got to bounce back. We’re a close group, we’ve just got to stick together – and we will.

“We’re creating a lot of chances, all we’ve got to do is start putting the ball in the back of the net a bit more. The referee didn’t help us today but we’ll keep trying as hard as we can and hopefully that bit of luck will come our way.

“It’s given us a little more to climb (to finish in the top six) but we’ve just got to keep trying to grind out results and hopefully we can still get up there.”