By James Browning

COLCHESTER United head coach John McGreal has spoken of how he and his coaches are working on establishing a winning mentality at the club.

Following three consecutive victories, the U’s’ next test comes tomorrow, in the shape of league leaders Accrington Stanley, who have won nine of their last ten games.

Comparing his side’s form with that of Stanley, McGreal said: “When you look at Accrington at this moment in time, they’re winning games by the odd goal every week.

“We’ve been doing that of late, too, and I do think that successful teams do tend to find ways.”

The U’s have given themselves a glimmer of hope in the search for a League Two play-off place, following victories against Stevenage, Luton Town and Forest Green Rovers, but McGreal insists that his squad still have a lot to learn.

He said: “We’re a learning group. We’re trying to get a lot of tactics into the group of learning how to win games of football.

“We haven’t been the free-flowing, scoring team this season that we were last season.”

Colchester United have often been in strong positions during games throughout the course of the season, but have failed to capitalise on chances to take all three points on a number of occasions.

McGreal added: “You think back to Carlisle away and Mansfield away and we were unlucky not to get the wins there, so the performances have been there.

“It’s just a case of finding ways to win games and if that’s getting a goal early and sitting on things and countering, we’ve got that pace in those areas to actually do that.

“I think we saw that at times, when we were 2-1 up against Forest Green Rovers, we could quite easily have gone 3-1 or 4-1 up, which we should have done, really. The big thing this season has been those key moments, those areas that we’ve got into but haven’t been able to put the game to bed.”

Of Accrington Stanley’s nine losses so far this season, only four have been by more than one goal - and three of those came during a sticky patch for the club in the run up to Christmas.

Nine of Colchester’s 16 wins in League Two this season have come by a margin of a single goal, including in each of the club’s last three games.

McGreal wouldn’t mind more of the same, though.

He said: “If we win every game from now until the end of the season by a one-goal margin, I’ll take that hands down.”