COLCHESTER United winger Ashley Vincent took no joy from continuing his rich vein of goalscoring form against Swindon on Saturday.

The 25-year-old has now scored in his last three meetings with the Robins, having netted against them in both league fixtures last season, while altogether he has scored four goals in six career appearances against the Wiltshere club.

“I always seem to get a goal against them, but I’d have sacrificed that for a reverse of the 2-1 scoreline,” said Vincent. “The team’s result is always more important than personal goals.

“We just didn’t get going. We were really flat in the first half and we’ll all hold our hands up to that.

“Personally I couldn’t get my game going and while I got my goal I admit I didn’t do much more than that.

“I don’t think there’s any one reason behind it, to be honest. We prepared right, the attitude was right going into it, but sometimes you just can’t get going.

“A good start always helps and within the first three or four minutes we were in their half and forced a corner. After that we fell a bit flat though and got put on the back foot a bit. The keeper put one of my bad crosses onto the woodwork and we had a couple of chances at the end so, had things developed differently, we could have drawn or even won the game. The result was probably a fair one, though.”

He continued: “This is a tough league. Swindon were down the bottom and nine points behind us – now they are within six points of us.

“There are no bad teams in this division and when you come away from home you have to put in a better performance than we did today if you are to stand any chance of getting anything.

“You have to remember though that this is only the second time we have been beaten in 16 league games so we can’t be overly negative about things.

“On one hand we don’t want to dwell on this too much, but at the same time we need to make sure it doesn’t happen too many more times.

“We weren’t great and we’ve now got to regroup, work hard and try to put it right in the three home games coming up.

“Next week we have to make sure we are on it and try and build another run of results straight away.

“We are a good side and I can tell you that you won’t see a performance like that too often.”

The U’s now have three home games in succession. They host Hartlepool in the league on Saturday – a side that beat table-toppers Brighton at the weekend – before welcoming non-league side Swindon Supermarine to The Weston Homes Community Stadium the following weekend. Three days later, Brentford come to Essex for a Tuesday night league fixture.