Sam Walker has labelled this weekend’s home clash with League Two basement dwellers Barnet as a “huge game.”

The U’s suffered only their fourth defeat in their last 21 league matches last Saturday, although it was a dreadfully disappointing performance to accompany a 1-0 reverse at the hands of hosts Crewe Alexandra.

Walker is fully aware that the U’s cannot afford many more of these below-par displays, during the last dozen fixtures of the season, if the Essex club are going to finish in the top seven.

They are currently three points adrift of the play-off zone, although they have played at least one game more than virtually all of their main rivals.

“It’s a huge game this weekend, back at home,” insisted U’s keeper Sam Walker, who recently achieved the landmark of 200 senior appearances.

“We need to dust ourselves down and assess everything that has gone on at Crewe, and why we were so bad.

“And we need to look at why we were as flat as we were.

“It is vital that we have a really good week’s training – this is why we have got the squad that we have got.

“We are very fortunate that we have a very strong squad this season. You look at the bench and see how strong that is.

“So the manager (John McGreal) has plenty of options.

“I’m sure that training will be lively and vibrant this week, because everybody will be wanting to play next weekend.

“Crewe was an off-day, but we can’t have too many of these.

“We have 12 games left and 36 points to play for, and we need to get motoring on now to get up to those play-offs, and to get some results to go on a run,” added the 26-year-old custodian.

The U’s only missed out on the play-offs by one point and one place last term, and Walker doesn’t want a repeat of that outcome.

“It was a missed chance last weekend,” continued Walker.

“Crewe didn’t create a huge amount, but we didn’t create anything. Usually when we don’t play well we still create chances, but this time we played poorly and didn’t create any chances.

“We ran out of games last season, and we are very keen not to do that again this season,” concluded Walker.