Colchester United boss, John McGreal, admitted that his side are “throwing away good points” following today’s 2-1 defeat at Crewe Alexandra.

The U’s led after just 11 minutes, through Sammie Szmodics, but then let all their hard work of the first half go to waste as goals from Charlie Kirk (48 minutes) and Eddie Nolan (87), both from close-in, sealed the Essex club’s fate.

Coming hot on the heels of the previous weekend’s 3-2 home defeat to Mansfield, when the U’s also surrendered a half-time lead (2-0 up), made it doubly disappointing for a frustrated McGreal.

“We’ve got to nip this in the bud, because we are throwing away good points,” admitted McGreal.

“We were looking for a reaction, from the defeat to Mansfield, and we got that in the first half.

“But we were really, really poor in the second half. We conceded after just three minutes. Things need to change.

“We led at half-time, and I think we could have been two or three goals up. The only I could see them score was from set pieces, because we kept giving away free-kicks with our ill-discipline.

“We spoke about staying on the front foot, during the half-time talk, and then there’s a throw-in, a cross and a man at the back post (Kirk), and suddenly they have equalised.

“All what we had said has gone out of the window.

“We took a backward step for the next 10 minutes, but I thought we weathered that storm quite well.

“The game went a little dead, and we then grew into it again, although I thought we were very wasteful in that second half, which comes down to confidence.

“Still, I thought the game was just petering out into a 1-1 draw. We had not lost two back-to-back league games this season, so it really hurt to concede that late goal.

“It’s basically two crosses into the box that we have not been able to deal with, and it was the same the previous weekend,” added McGreal.