COLCHESTER United may be stranded at the basement, seven points adrift of safety, but defender Adam Virgo is not fazed about the results of their relegation rivals.

Carl Marston

COLCHESTER United may be stranded at the basement, seven points adrift of safety and defender Adam Virgo saying they only have themselves to blame.

The U's heavy 4-1 defeat at Plymouth, coupled with Preston's 1-0 success at Leicester, has left Geraint Williams' men marooned at the foot of the table.

The Essex club have just 11 games left to save themselves, and they will need to win a daunting six or seven of these to save their Championship status.

“I know the gap has been extended, following this set of results, but we've just got to concentrate on our own results,” said Virgo.

“We still have several games to come against teams around us, like Sheffield Wednesday, Leicester and Scunthorpe. These are the sort of results that really matter at the end of the season.

“Of course the Plymouth defeat was very disappointing, It never feels good to lose by that sort of score-line.

“I thought that we did quiet well against Bristol City and Wolves, without getting the results, and we wanted to take that sort of momentum onto Plymouth. I thought we had a genuine chance to get a victory.

“However, we defended very poorly, not just the back four but the whole team. We shot ourselves in the foot again.”

Striker-turned-defender Virgo, who has spent the whole of this season on loan from Celtic, believes that there is little to choose between most clubs in the Championship.

The U's have only won six of their 37 league and cup games this term, but with the exceptions of the 4-1 defeats at Cardiff (in December) and Plymouth (on Tuesday night), they have rarely been completely outgunned by the opposition.

Virgo continued: “Plymouth didn't player better football than us. But like most teams in the Championship, they pushed us back into our own half. They were just more clinical than us.

“There was a chink of light when Kevin Lisbie pulled it back to 3-1. I felt we had a chance of mounting a comeback, but there was no coming back from 4-1 down.

“Our final ball in for our strikers was not good enough, and we will have to improve on this at Crystal Palace on Saturday.”