John McGreal admits Colchester United still need to bridge the gap with League Two’s leading clubs after their unbeaten start to the season was ended by Northampton Town.

The U’s four-match unbeaten sequence at the beginning of the new league programme was halted by the Cobblers, who sealed a 2-1 away victory to clinch their first win of the campaign.

It was a disappointing outcome for Colchester, especially coming just days after they had thrashed Crewe Alexandra 6-0 at the JobServe Community Stadium.

U’s head coach McGreal said: “I said this could be our hardest game and it proved that.

“Northampton are a big team in our division – they’ve found division two tough but it was only a matter of time before they turned the corner with the quality players they’ve got with a good budget.

“Even though we’ve been flying, we’ve still got to try and bridge these gaps with teams like this and we weren’t able to do it.

“We’ll pick the bones out of it, analyse it and then move forward.

“We have a nice little break now to try and recover and then it’s onto next Saturday.”

Colchester are next in action when they travel to play Cheltenham Town in League Two, on Saturday.

They will be looking for immediate revenge, following their penalty shoot-out exit at the hands of the Robins in the Carabao Cup first round earlier this month.