Humes - "we ended up losing a game we should never have lost"

Humes felt his side did not build on the promise of an impressive start at London Road, after they suffered their first league defeat of the season.

Macauley Bonne gave Colchester a deserved lead on the half hour, after slotting home Gavin Massey’s fine cross.

But two goals in the space of four minutes soon after from Marcus Maddison gave Peterborough a lead they did not relinquish.

And Humes felt his Colchester side did not do enough in the second half to earn a point.

He said: “I thought that we were very good in the first 20 minutes and we did what we set out to do.

“We looked very solid and caught them on a few counter-attacks, one of which we scored from but then the players stopped doing it for some reason.

“That’s why we ended up losing a game we should never have lost.

“They wanted a scrappy game and we just stopped doing what we were doing.

“To concede two goals in four minutes isn’t good enough and the players have got to accept responsibility to be solid and compact, after they score a goal.”

Humes was disappointed in referee Mark Haywood’s decision not to send off Peterborough keeper Ben Alnwick after he handled outside of his area in the second half and was only booked.

And the U’s boss also felt Posh’s Joe Gormley could have received his marching orders instead of only receiving a yellow card, following a strong challenge on Matt Briggs which forced the U’s full-back to be substituted.

“There was a two-footed tackle on Matty Briggs,” added Humes.

“And with the other one, I don’t know where the referee got his interpretation that it wasn’t a goalscoring opportunity from.

“He’s out there to do a job but he didn’t do it.

“But you still have to get on with the game and play how you want to play and after 20 minutes, we didn’t carry that out enough and didn’t create enough opportunities.”

For five pages of coverage on the U’s defeat at Peterborough, see Monday’s Daily Gazette.