COLCHESTER United host Sutton United tonight looking for a rapid response after their dismal defeat at Port Vale.

The U’s head into the first of back-to-back games at the JobServe Community Stadium looking to get back on track, following a 3-0 defeat at Port Vale.

Colchester lie 19th in the table ahead of their home matches against Sutton and Scunthorpe United, whom they host on Saturday and boss Hayden Mullins admits they need to provide a response - and not 'mope' about what happened at the weekend.

He said: “At the moment, we’re coming off three games where we’ve won one, we’ve drawn one and we’ve lost one so we need to react in the right away on Tuesday and try and get a result.

“We’ve been beaten 3-0 and we have to take it on the chin and deal with it.

“We can’t linger or moan about it or mope – we got beaten by a decent side and we move on and prepare for Tuesday.

“We can’t win every game, we know that.

“We set up to try and do better but the game didn’t go as well as we had wanted it to.

“We have a tough game against Sutton and we’ll be preparing for it.

“We’ll be positive and attack the game in the right way.”

Colchester have accumulated 13 points in their opening 14 games of the season – seven fewer than the number they had racked up at the same stage, last season.

The U’s saw a host of players arrive and depart in the summer, following a harrowing second half of the 2020-21 campaign which saw them battle for League Two survival.

“We had a big turnover in the summer, with a lot of players coming in and a lot of players leaving,” said Mullins.

“It’s normal for a football club to have ups and downs and you have to deal with that and the challenges that are put in front of you.

“That’s the nature of the job; it’s never going to be an easy job, managing a football club.

“It’s always going to be a tough one and there’s always going to be ups and downs and it’s up to me to try and get the players into an area where we’re really positive and looking forward.”