Colchester United’s leading scorer, Jabo Ibehre, confessed that it shouldn’t have taken a home thrashing to “galvanise” himself and his team-mates into action.

Ibehre, in the team that were humbled 4-0 by Notts County the previous weekend, bagged his fifth goal of the season in last Saturday’s encouraging 2-0 win at Oldham.

Now the U’s will be eager to make up for the Magpies flop again, when they return to the Weston Homes Community Stadium for a home match against Stevenage on Boxing Day.

“It shouldn’t have taken a defeat like last week to galvanise everyone, but it did,” admitted Ibehre.

“Especially in the first half (at Oldham), everyone battled around and hurried after that ball, which is what we need all the time.

“It shows that we can be a mid-table team, or one pushing for the play-offs, there is no doubt about it.

“But we need that sort of commitment and we need to be more consistent.

“We showed we can do it, at Oldham, and believe me, what a difference a week makes!”

Ibehre swept home Dominic Vose’s cross, on 31 minutes, to double the U’s lead after Latics left-back Ellis Plummer had put through his own net, by diverting home Craig Eastmond’s low cross for a seventh minute own goal.

The U’s never released their strong grip on this game, as Oldham floundered – their boss, Lee Johnson, described the whole afternoon as his “worst experience in football.”

But for the U’s, it was an amazing turnaround from their own home humiliation against Notts County.

“After last week’s game, we had a little chat all together in the dressing room,” revealed Ibehre.

“And this week we had a big discussion about where we wanted to go, and to know what we wanted from each other.

“The dressing room is magnificent, especially after what happened last season. We are all together, there is not even a joke.

“Hopefully, this can be the start of something for sure.

“Everyone was hurt from last week. We realised we did not play as well as we can, and were not fulfilling our potential,” added Ibehre.