MATTY Etherington admits he expects more from his Colchester United players after they were thrashed 4-0 at home by West Ham United under-21s.

The U’s crashed out of the Bristol Street Motors Trophy at the Round of 32 stage after being comfortably beaten by a slick young Hammers side, at the JobServe Community Stadium.

It was Colchester’s third successive defeat in all competitions and head coach Etherington admits it was a disappointing night for his side.

Etherington said: “They ran out winners at a canter in the second half, so that was disappointing.

READ MORE: Match report as Colchester are beaten by West Ham under-21s

“I thought we did OK in the first half, in moments.

“But ultimately, it wasn’t good enough on the night against a good young team.

“I don’t think we caused them enough problems.

“We looked at the areas we could exploit them and we did it on occasions but we didn’t do it often enough and it’s something I’ve got to look at.

“I’m the head coach and I’ve got to look at why we didn’t do it.

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“I expect more from the players and if I didn’t, then I’d be questioning myself.

“We shouldn’t be getting 4-0 by a young West Ham side, that’s the bottom line.

“We’ve kind of reverted back to type a little bit over the last two games and I need to find out why.

“We’ll go over in detail on Thursday to find out why.”

Colchester fell behind to Dan Chesters’ eighth-minute strike, against his former club.

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And further second-half goals from George Earthy, Lewis Orford and Divin Mubama sealed West Ham under-21s’ big victory.

Colchester have conceded 11 times in their last three games and Etherington admits the goals were avoidable.

“We seem to be really struggling with the finer details at the minute,” he added.

“We’ve got to see (Dan) Chesters a little bit earlier and block his run.

Gazette: Matty Etherington

“I felt we could have done better for the second goal too and the third goal from outside of the box, are we getting up to the ball quick enough?

“There are loads of things there and the goals were avoidable.

“The over-riding feeling is one of disappointment and the goals we conceded were disappointing, too.

“When you’re shipping goals like we have done recently, indecisiveness comes in and that’s where we need to be clearer in our minds and the way we work.”