COLCHESTER United head coach Danny Cowley admitted he was 'angry' after his side allowed a lead to slip to lose 2-1 at home to promotion-chasing Wrexham this afternoon.

The U's had led through John Akinde's 54th-minute strike but goals from Paul Mullin - his 100th for Wrexham - and Max Cleworth clinched victory for the visitors, in front of a crowd of nearly 8,500 at the JobServe Community Stadium.

The defeat leaves Colchester a point adrift of safety with six games remaining and boss Cowley admits he was hugely disappointed with his side's performance in the final half hour of the game.

READ MORE: Colchester United 1 Wrexham 2 - match report as U's are beaten

Cowley said: “Playing football for 60 minutes is not enough.

“If you want to win, you have to play for 90 minutes or however long they want to add on these days.

“We were 1-0 up in front of a full house and the atmosphere was bouncing and you just need to step up and keep playing and we didn’t do that.

Do you know what – at half-time, they were fighting between themselves in our tunnel, because we stood up to them.

“We'd really competed with them and they had no answer and they’re a good team with really good players.

Gazette:

“But they win two ways - they win through bullying you or through individual brilliance. That's the two ways that they win.

"We just needed to keep playing but we didn't.

“They didn’t play well today but it’s the sign of a good team when they didn’t play well but they win.

"You don't have to play well when you've got a lot of minerals and a lot of resilience.

"We were significantly the better team for an hour but they stayed in the fight.

READ MORE: Colchester United 1 Wrexham 2 - as it happened

“We needed leadership and personality and we didn’t show enough of it and I’m really angry this evening.

“It was a really disappointing first goal for us to concede where we over-mark the near post when we don’t need to and there's no threat.

"We don’t scan and check our shoulder and locate Mullin, who's 5ft 10 and our centre-half is 6ft 3 and they get in between us and they find the header.

Gazette:

"It's a disappointing goal that rocked us and that’s where you need leadership and character and personality and we didn’t show enough of it and that's disappointing and they do have it.

"You play that well for 60 minutes and then you fall off the edge of a cliff, it makes it very difficult to manage performance, when you see the levels that we did have for such a long period of the game and then just to fall off it like we did - I didn't like it.

"I'm really angry this evening.

"They create pressure and you have to stand up to his physically but also be brave enough to stand up to it technically and we stopped playing.

"We stopped getting on the ball and we didn't show enough personality when it mattered, when the game got hot.

"The players don't deserve to talk about the good things - they don't deserve any credit tonight because the good things are irrelevant if you don't play for the whole game."