Kurtis Guthrie crowned his first league start for nearly 11 months with a wonderful goal, although his opening strike ultimately proved fruitless in Colchester United’s 4-1 home defeat to Cheltenham Town.

Finally back to full health, after a long struggle with an ankle injury, Guthrie is now looking to cement his old starting place over the weeks and months ahead.

The 24-year-old was the U’s second joint scorer with 12 goals last term, and he is now eager to make for lost time.

Boss John McGreal also has leading scorer Sammie Szmodics (12 goals) and target man Mikael Mandron (eight) for firepower, but Guthrie is confident that he will regain his No. 1 striker’s berth.

“It’s obviously up to the manager whether he can play all three of us up front,” explained Guthrie.

“All I can say is that whoever is ahead of me, for me personally they won’t be there long because I’m looking to push on and kick on.

“And at the end of the day, as much as I want those boys to do well, first and foremost my job is to make sure that I am in the starting line-up every week, and that I keep scoring goals.

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“It was good to re-announce myself back among the people and the rest of the league, that I am ready and also ready to start helping the team to climb up the ladder and get myself among the goals again.

“I think people know me well enough. I am confident and I am not one to be shy to do as I feel at the time.

“My confidence has not changed, whether I have been out for 11 months, two months or a few weeks, it doesn’t matter, I know what I am capable of and I want to try and prove that in every game.”

Guthrie’s 40th minute goal put the U’s 1-0 up, but Kyel Reid’s sending-off just three minutes later swung the game in Cheltenham’s favour.

“I felt that Cheltenham did not really threaten us. We nullified all their attacks, their attacks,” said Guthrie.

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“The sending off turned the game for us. Unfortunately, we could not hold out, but we will dust ourselves down and go again. We are disappointed that we didn’t make it harder for Cheltenham to win against 10 men, but obviously we have just come off the back of the festive period and most of the boys that played today have played all of those games, so they have not had that much rest.”