SAMMIE Szmodics has urged his Colchester United team-mates to keep believing in themselves ahead of their Essex derby tonight.

The U’s host neighbours Southend United in the Checkatrade Trophy, still reeling from last weekend’s disappointing 3-1 defeat at Stevenage.

Colchester dropped out of the top seven in League Two following the loss, which was their first away league reverse of the season.

John McGreal’s side now have back-to-back home games and Colchester-born attacker Szmodics insists they must remain upbeat.

Szmodics said: “We’ve got the game against Southend on Tuesday and then we welcome Crawley.

“We’ve got to keep believing and go and get those three points and get back in the top seven.

“We’re all in it together and this is the best the team spirit has been, so we need to stay positive.

“Every team loses games and the main thing is how you bounce back.”

Szmodics bagged his fourth goal of the season after bagging a second-minute opener at Stevenage.

The 23-year-old almost scored again minutes later, when his goalbound effort was blocked by home defender Scott Cuthbert at close range.

“I was a bit annoyed with the (Scott) Cuthbert chance – I should have put that one away too,” said former Stanway School pupil Szmodics.

“But I was pleased to get on the scoresheet and get among the goals again and long may it continue.

“I had another chance and we should have put the game to bed.

“It’s been cut back, I’ve controlled it and you haven’t got time to look up there.

“You’re on the penalty spot and you just have to hit it and big Cuthbert got in the way of it.”

Szmodics admits Colchester took their ‘foot off the gas’ to lose at Stevenage, where they had dominated for the opening half hour.

Szmodics added: “We should have killed the game off and been two or three up.

“We created things in the first half an hour but we stopped doing it in the last hour of the game and it’s come back to bite us on the bum.

“It’s hard to keep that momentum and we work hard to get ourselves into the position of being 1-0 up after two minutes and we wanted to kick on from there.

“It’s tough – we’ve all played a lot of league games and everyone’s been in that situation before.

“But you have to counter what the opposition bring and we didn’t do that.

“Unfortunately, we took our foot off the gas and came away with nothing.

“You do have to give the opposition some credit, because they penned us back.

“We had to get deep and we couldn’t get out of our half.

“But it comes from us not staying on top and doing what we’d been doing, for the first half an hour.

“It was a horrible time to concede just before half-time especially from a set-piece, as we’ve been so good with them this season.”