Colchester United head coach John McGreal admitted his side's 2-1 home defeat at the hands of Accrington Stanley was their most disappointing display since taking over as manager.

The U's had taken a seventh-minute lead through Drey Wright's superb long-range strike.

But two goals in the space of ten minutes from Romuald Boco and Billy Kee secured Accrington's victory, despite the visitors having their skipper Scotty Brown dismissed in stoppage-time after picking up two yellow cards.

McGreal said: “I think it was probably the most disappointing display since I’ve been manager, just in the way the game unfolded.

"We have to see those games out - they've had a tough game on the Wednesday night (against West Ham) and we needed to have that little bit more urgency.

"But we weren't able to and they've gone away with the win.

"When you're up at half-time you have to be getting over the line and coming away with the points.

"They didn't really perform well in the first half but they got up a head of steam in the second half.

“We were 1-0 up and there are different ways of winning a game but we’re unable to kill off the opposition at the moment.

“We score early and concede sloppy goals and that’s something we will have to work on to change.

“We have to learn quickly – we’re nine games in and we were in a good position at half-time, without being able to capitalise again.

“We tried to get them to get the balls into areas where it could hurt them but I don’t think we did that.

“The word capitalise again keeps coming up and it’s something that we’ve spoken about and something that we’ll improve on.

“It was a game where they got themselves in the lead and they’ve killed the game one way or another by hook or by crook and they’ve done it well.”