Colchester United defender, Ryan Jackson, admitted that the team “lacked a bit of energy” following Saturday’s 2-1 home defeat to Northampton Town.

East Anglian Daily Times: U's defender, Ryan Jackson, prepares to takes a long throw-in. Picture: STEVE WALLER WWW.STEPHENWALLER.COMU's defender, Ryan Jackson, prepares to takes a long throw-in. Picture: STEVE WALLER WWW.STEPHENWALLER.COM (Image: � Copyright Stephen Waller)

Jackson produced a man-of-the-match display at right-back, but he too was slightly below his best as the U’s suffered their first league defeat of the season, from five starts, to slip to sixth in the League Two table.

“It was not a good day today,” rued Jackson.

“I think we lacked a bit of energy, especially in the first half, but credit to Northampton, they obviously kind of nullified our threats and put up a big test for us, and we fell short in the end.

“Recent games have taken their toll a little bit as well. In the league we have played with the same squad in all the games, so that can take it’s toll, although I don’t want to be making excuses.

“We should have still put in a performance and I think we did pick it up at the end, but we ran out of minutes.

“Northampton hadn’t had the best of starts to their season, yet they worked hard and stopped our threats,

“But I still think we could have done better today. We could have quickened up the tempo,” added Jackson.

London-born Jackson is enjoying his second season with the U’s, following his switch from Gillingham in the summer of 2017.

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And the 28-year-old has already clocked up his half-century of senior appearances for the Essex club, a notable feat in such a short space of time.

He felt that the U’s did have their chance to rescue a point, and so preserve their unbeaten record, during the last quarter of Saturday’s game.

“We had chances. It happens that on a good day they go in, but on another day they don’t go in,” continued Jackson.

“But you can’t really fault the lads’ attitude. We got in the right areas, but just couldn’t put the chances away.

“We have got a fighting spirit this year. We will keep going until the end, and I think that showed with the goal (Aaron Pierre’s own goal) we got near the end.

“Coming on the back of a 6-0 win (over Crewe), everyone wanted to put in another performance and get another three points, but it just didn’t happen. However, we will keep going and make sure that this result does not affect us.

“We will have a good week of training and then go again at Cheltenham on Saturday.”