Colchester United boss, John McGreal, would love the sound of the drum to return to the South Stand, following Saturday’s home stalemate against Morecambe.

The inspiring beat of the drum was a big feature of home matches at the Weston Homes Community Stadium earlier this year, and something for the U’s players could feed off, especially when they were attacking towards the noisy South Stand.

But the drum has been conspicuous by its absence in recent matches.

“We have another home game on Tuesday (against Lincoln), another good game to look forward to, and hopefully the South Stand will again get behind us from the start,” explained McGreal.

“I think we are missing the drum a bit – we need to get that out. I don’t know where the drum has gone.

“I think we are missing that to help get the boys going, especially in games that are tight and going to the wire.

“In the first half we played well and if we had been lucky enough to score an early goal then things change, but that’s what the boys are finding.

“They are on a really good vein of form, 18 points out of nine games with five clean-sheets in there, so they’ve got a bit of a reputation.

“They’ve got to be able to handle the ball a bit quicker and move it a bit quicker, because this it is what is tending not to happen, especially at home.”

- Carl Marston’s U’s Player Ratings

The U’s looked defensively solid throughout, a contrast to earlier in the campaign when they were leaking goals, such as the three conceded at both Accrington and at Luton during the first fortnight.

But on Saturday they lacked guile, pace and inventiveness at the other end of the pitch.

“We had a couple of early chances. It’s disappointing that we didn’t get a goal in that first part,” said McGreal. “We started the game well but they came back into it and then killed the game. It just wasn’t to be today.

“I took a centre-half off, and brought on three attacking players. We weren’t sitting on the point, we tried to win it.

“It was a tough game, but the positive is another clean-sheet, while knowing that we still have a little work to do in that final third.

“I was never going to settle on a 0-0, even though Morecambe always posed a threat. I wanted to try and win it – it just didn’t’ work out today,” added McGreal.