WAYNE Brown believes Colchester United's stickability can stand them in good stead in the League Two run-in.

The U's have shown since Brown took interim charge that they have been competitive in the vast majority of their games.

Colchester have lost only one of the 15 matches Brown has presided over since taking over in January by more than a single goal - the 3-0 defeat at promotion-chasing Northampton Town, in February.

Four of their last five fixtures have been decided by one goal and boss Brown is encouraged by the way in which his team are staying in games.

Brown said: “If you take the Northampton game out of it, there’s never been anything in games of football that we’ve played, regardless of whether we’ve been playing Tranmere or Oldham.

“Across the board, we’ve always been very competitive and we’ve always given ourselves the best chance of getting points.

“We’ve always given ourselves the best chance of getting points on the board, because we’ve stayed in games of football.

“It’s imperative that we do that.

“We probably weren’t at our best against Tranmere but we stayed in the game limiting to them to only two shots on target.

“That’s some doing, against a team who are going for automatic promotion.

“I’m pleased with that aspect of our game and that will have to come to the fore again on Saturday, to give ourselves the best chance of getting points from the game."

Colchester return to action this weekend when they travel to play Harrogate Town, in League Two.

The U's, who lie eight points above the drop zone, are looking to further pull away from the bottom two with seven games to play.

Brown wants to see his side take a leaf out of last weekend's match-winner Junior Tchamadeu's book and be ruthless when opportunities come their way.

Brown said: “The better the opposition that you play against, the more the chances are going to be limited.

“No disrespect to any of the teams I’m going to mention but 18 or 19 shots against Carlisle and Orient, that wasn’t going to be the case against a well-organised Tranmere team.

“When chances do come along, we have to be clinical and ruthless.

“The target is to win on Saturday – it’s as simple as that.

“We’ll do all we can and we have done all we can throughout the week to prepare the lads the best way that we see fit.

“We’ve kept them fresh; we have a long journey up to Harrogate tomorrow (Friday) and it’s about trying to prepare the lads to win a game of football.

“Hopefully once we’ve done that, we can concentrate on the next one."