Defender Frankie Kent is looking to make up for the disappointment of Saturday’s 1-0 home defeat to Carlisle, by helping to keep a clean-sheet at Newport County tomorrow evening.

Kent and his fellow centre-halves Tom Eastman and Cole Kpekawa almost coasted through last weekend’s game, only for the U’s to be beaten by the Cumbrians’ only shot on target all afternoon.

“I hardly had anything to do. They just had a couple of shots, nothing major, but we didn’t see the game out,” rued sweeper Kent.

“Just one long ball killed us – they took their one opportunity. We’ve got to get better at that, at both ends of the pitch, It was such a sucker punch.

“It’s very small margins. Carlisle are a good team, but we kept our shape and had a few chances.

“It was a frustrating day, but our away form has been good recently.

“It’s a hard week ahead for us, starting on Tuesday. We want to put in a really good, solid performance.

“If we can put in a better performance than we did on Saturday, then I feel we will be all right,” added Kent.

The U’s have taken four points from their last two away games, following a 2-2 draw at Grimsby and a 1-0 win at Yeovil, and they would love a similar haul following tomorrow’s test at Newport and then Saturday’s visit to Coventry City.

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“Saturday was a tough one to take,” continued Kent, who is set to make his 70th first team appearance for the Essex club tomorrow.

“I don’t think the boys were really at it, 100%, and that’s obviously down to us.

“We were not cute enough to get through them. I feel we were pretty one-dimensional, and like the gaffer said after the game, we didn’t really get the ball out wide enough to our creative players. We played too much down their middle.

“We didn’t play to our strengths, and that came back to haunt us.”

Kent has started the U’s last six games, and has in fact started 11 of the U’s first 13 league games of this season. The 21-year-old has only missed the home draw with Chesterfield and the defeat at Cheltenham, both due to injury in mid-September.