COLCHESTER United manager John Ward vowed ‘the goals will come’ after watching his side’s away day misery continue at Notts County.

The lacklustre 2-0 loss – the Essex club’s seventh defeat from their last eight away games – is the sixth successive time on their travels they have failed to score.

And while Ward admitted things must improve if the U’s are to stay with the play-off pack, he preferred to focus on the positives.

“We’ve not been clinical enough here tonight and I know that’s not the first time I’ve said that, I know it’s not a new phrase,” he said.

“We will start scoring goals at this football club though. If anyone is in doubt of that we will prove them wrong.”

Colchester have only slipped one place in the League One table to 11th and only drift one point further off of the top six – the gap now five – following other results.

“See there are some positives,” said Ward. “I thought we were much better in the second half when Lloyd James and Kem Izzet came on too.

“We could have had two goals in the opening 10 minutes and that would have changed the complexion of the game. Instead we gave away two goals which were a bit easy for the opposition and that obviously made it hard for us.

“There are things to work on, but we’ve now got to try and bounce back against Walsall (home) on Saturday.”