COLCHESTER United chairman Robbie Cowling insists his club will come back even stronger after suffering relegation to League Two.

The U’s fate was sealed as a result of Saturday’s 3-0 defeat at home to Burton Albion.

It means they cannot scramble clear of the bottom three – regardless of what they do in their final two games.

But Cowling plans to channel the upset into making his club better and stronger in years to come.

And he insists he will not deviate from his policy of building for the future – rather than finding short-term fixes.

“If you get knocked down, you want to get straight back up and you want to come back stronger,” said the U’s chairman.

“I want to use this energy and emotion to get even better. If I didn’t, what would be the point?

“We didn’t get the combination quite right this year, but I’m just going to think about what I can do to make this club go on and do even better.

“As chairman, I have to ask whether we want to do well in just the short-term or in the long-term?

“And to me, it’s about the future. That’s the way I try to do things.

“I’m going to try and do the things I think are right for the club going forward.

“We’re not a massive, great big club that don’t deserve to be in League Two.

“We know it’s not going to be easy and we’ve got a lot of work to do.

“But there are great things about our club and, overall, I’m really proud of a lot of the things we’ve managed to achieve.”

Cowling was mainly referring to the club’s youth policy and their desire to nurture home-grown talent.

Two of their best players in Saturday’s defeat were rising stars Tom Lapslie and Macauley Bonne.

“We’ve proved in the last few years that we can produce talent,” added Cowling “Our youth policy is something we should all be very, very proud of.

“For whatever reason, it gets criticised sometimes. How mad is that?

“Why would anyone criticise something that’s so good?

“We invest a lot of money into our youth policy but half the squad aren’t home-produced, so we’ve got to look at how we can get better in terms of the players we recruit.

“That’s my responsibility. I take it on the chin and have got to make sure we do better.

“We have to make sure we bring the right senior players in alongside the young ones, but there’s no doubt that there’s a lot of really good things about this club.”

Cowling was also full of praise for Colchester’s fans, who have stuck behind the team throughout a difficult season and showed their support on Saturday.

“The fans have been great and as chairman I feel responsible for everything,” he said.

“I want to do more for them but I’m not just going to do stuff in the short term to make me popular and give them one or two better days.

“I’m really proud of a lot of things about our club and our supporters are certainly one of those things.”