Colchester United midfielder Cole Skuse shone at Harrogate

The 36-year-old midfielder impressed in the U's 2-1 triumph at the EnviroVent Stadium and had a big hand in their winning goal, scored by Noah Chilvers.

Skuse, who is Colchester's third-highest appearance maker this season behind Freddie Sears and Luke Chambers, eventually had to be taken off in the 84th minute at Harrogate and was replaced by Miles Welch-Hayes.

The former Ipswich Town and Bristol City was influential throughout and U's interim boss Brown says they wanted to keep him on the pitch for as long as possible.

Brown said: “When you work as hard as he did, in the position that he played in, inevitably your body’s going to catch up with you.

“Sometimes your body actually tells you ‘I’m in a bit of trouble here’.

“To be fair, we kept him on for ten to 15 minutes more than probably we should have done.

“But game management is an integral part of what we do.

“We wanted to get every last little inch out of him that we could and he was excellent.

“The Skusey one was forced a little bit with the way he was carrying a few injuries, so we had to look after him a little bit."

Meanwhile Brown says he is setting high standards for his Colchester side, as the League Two season draws to a close.

The U's are looking to pull further away from the relegation zone, having now moved 11 points clear of the bottom two with six games remaining.

“The expectancy that we’ve got from the lads is high," said Brown.

“We’re challenging the lads all the time for more.

“I’m always after more, because I know that we’ve got more to give.

“The frustrating thing for me was that I felt we lacked quality in the first 20-25 minutes.

“We didn’t compete, we didn’t track runners, first and second balls we were really poor and second best.

“We needed to show a bit more composure on the ball and first-pass quality.

“But when we do show the quality, we’re a threat.

“That was proven on probably four occasions (against Harrogate) and we got two goals from those four occasions.

“What pleased me the most is that the lads were in a bit of a hole at half-time and they knew self admittedly that they weren’t at the races.

“But to dig in and to keep their shape as well as they did and to restrict Harrogate to probably hardly any chances in the second half was testament to them.

“Sometimes, that’s what it takes – a little bit of character, a little bit of steel and determination and people have to dig in and that’s just what they did.

“Again, you’re asking people to go in and do a job.

“Noah (Chilvers) was asked to go in and do a sitting job, put his head on a stick, head balls and put his body on the line in the box.

“Brendan (Wiredu, pictured above) covered a lot of ground again, which had been one of his sort of weaknesses if you like, covering ground on a consistent amount, over a 90-minute spell.

“He put a great shift in but the list goes on.”