IT’S an Essex derby against our rivals Southend United tonight – but I know a lot of people who won’t be going.

At the same time, I also know people who don’t usually go who will be at the game because of who we’re playing.

People staying away is mainly down to the competition - the Checkatrade Trophy has got such bad press and that’s pretty much all to do with the decision to allow under-21 teams into the competition from the Premier League and the Championship.

I think a lot of people see it as the beginning of introducing B teams into the football pyramid, like we’ve already seen in places like Spain and Germany.

I don’t want to see the U’s playing someone like Arsenal B in the league and I know a lot of other fans feel the same.

Personally, I will be going tonight – I find it hard to hard to stay away from Col U and I’ll support them in every game – but I can understand why some will not.

It’s one of those games where if we win, people might say it’s only the Checkatrade Trophy but if we lose, people will be unhappy because it’s against our rivals.

I don’t think we’re expecting our strongest team to play tonight but it’s a good chance for us to prepare for our league game against Crawley Town, this weekend.

It’s important to bounce back having dropped out of the top seven and we don’t want to fall too adrift of the top three.

The play-offs would be a success for us this season but three of the four teams involved in them are always left disappointed.

Crawley are equal on points with us in the table and they’ve had a great start to the season, as I don’t think they’re top half of the table contenders, this season.

They’ve been a bit of a bogey team for us over the years but it’s another big game for us, especially after our result at Stevenage.

The fans were disappointed with what happened there and a lot of them felt it was a game of two halves.

For some reason, we were unable to keep up the standard they produced in the first half.

We got an early goal and that was key but then Kurtis Guthrie scored and got involved with a couple of gestures towards us.

I think it made the game more about Kurtis Guthrie than us and created a negative vibe which didn’t help us.

We all know that he performs well under pressure and he was in the spotlight.

We looked like we might get a draw from the game until they scored two late goals and to concede them again at that point of the match was a bit worrying.

It was a bit of concern how we switched off at that time – the penalty we conceded wasn’t in the box but we can’t blame the result on that because Stevenage deserved to win.

But we are scoring goals and that’s encouraging.

We have the players now to do that and we’re not just relying on one or two players, as we have in previous seasons.

As well as Luke Norris, we have the likes of Sammie Szmodics, Frank Nouble and Mikael Mandron who can all chip in with goals.