Under-fire Layer Road manager Steve Whitton remained adamant yesterday (Thursday) his Colchester United squad would still be in the Second Division next season.

The U's boss was speaking after watching his team get roundly booed off the pitch by the smallest home crowd of the season following a lacklustre 1-0 defeat at the hands of fellow strugglers Port Vale on Wednesday.

Vale, now boasting just two defeats from the last 13 League and cup outings, won the game with a blistering 30-yard second-half thunderbolt from the £500,000-rated former Wrexham midfielder David Brammer.

For the full match report see 'Soccer: Flat U's lack passion' in the drop-down menu at the bottom of this page Find out more about Colchester United The result pushed Brian Horton's side to within one point of the U's - now boasting just one win from their last nine outings - in the bottom eight in the table.

Whitton said: "It's goals at either end that decide where you finish in the League and there's only one group of people who are going to put that right - me and my players.

"I know we are good enough to stay up and with only 12 games to go now we've got to prove it. We must play with far more conviction.

"We've already proved we can do it, but every player has to improve by at least ten per cent.

"If we do that and work even harder then I promise you we'll get out of trouble."

Whitton admitted he was "hurt" by the fact the fans booed his team off the pitch. He said: "I can understand why it happened, but that doesn't help matters one bit.

"We want the same as they do, a positive result, but all the booing will do is undermine the boys' confidence which is already low.

"I'm not for one minute pretending we were good enough because we weren't.

"But taking the game overall I felt we were the better side, beaten by an absolute screamer of a goal.

"If Barry Conlon had put away an easy chance right at the death everyone would have gone home reasonably happy with a draw."

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