Michael Rose has admitted his first season as a Colchester United player was a “write off”.

But the attacking full-back has targeted the new campaign to finally prove his worth to U’s supporters.

Rose is the first to admit that things did not go exactly smoothly for him in his first year at the Weston Homes Community Stadium .

He started Colchester’s opening five games following his switch from Swindon Town, in May 2011.

But things went downhill fast, with the former Manchester United trainee becoming a target for some of the U’s boo boys.

Consequently, Rose was dropped by boss John Ward and had to wait nearly four months for his next start.

Indeed, he made Colchester’s starting line-up only seven further times last season.

However, the summer break has given the defender time to take a step back and re-evaulate things.

Now Rose occupies the U’s left-back spot again - and is determined to hold onto his shirt.

Rose said: “I think that we can put last year down as a write off, from my point of view.

“I wasn’t happy with myself last season.

“I’ve gone away in the summer and thought about and gone over things.

“But that’s been and gone now and this season is a new year.

“Hopefully I can progress and stay in the team.”

Rose and his U’s team-mates take on crisis club Portsmouth tonight, hoping to build on their encouraging display at Preston North End.

Colchester picked up their first point of the season in drawing 0-0 at Deepdale.

They now head into their first home game of the season in search of their first League One win.

“The Preston performance is something we can build on, going into tonight’s game,” said former Norwich City defender Rose.

“The lads are determined to do well this year and hopefully, we will do.

“We knew what Preston’s game plan would be and I think it was important for us to get a clean sheet.

“We’ve got our first point on the board and we take it into tonight’s game.

“We conceded three sloppy goals at Yeovil and two of them were from set pieces, which wasn’t like us.

“We wanted to tighten up and we coped really well with Preston’s set pieces.

“As a whole team, we defended well and we had worked on that in training.

“That hard work paid off and we were all delighted with the clean sheet.”

See Tuesday's Gazette for a full preview of Colchester United's home game with Portsmouth tonight.