PHIL Brown insists Swindon Town deserved more after they were beaten 1-0 at Colchester United.

But the Robins manager admits the U's have 'got something going' after they moved up to third in League Two with the win.

Sammie Szmodics’ strike just before half-time proved the winner at the JobServe Community Stadium but the visitors were not without their chances, particularly in the final 20 minutes.

Colchester goalkeeper Rene Gilmartin pulled off a fine save to deny Martin Smith, while Keshi Anderson squandered a glorious chance for the visitors when he fired wide late on.

Brown said: “Did they deserve to win 1-0? No because if you look at the game as a whole Lawrence Vigouroux, apart from picking the ball out of the net hasn’t had too much to do and their goalkeeper has pulled off an absolute world-class save to keep them in the game.

“If it goes to 1-1, we probably would have gone on to win the game with our form in these kind of games.

“But we’ve come away from here with nothing and we have to learn something from this.

“We have to learn that when you’re flying high and playing well and at the top of the league, you’ve got that belief and growing confidence.

“We have to keep working at it, with the individuals and the collective group.

“I’m sure John (McGreal) will be saying the same thing at the moment because he’s winning games – they’ve beaten Lincoln 1-0 and they’ve beaten us 1-0.”

Swindon lie in 16th place in the table after the defeat at Colchester and have won only one of their last eight league games, prompting Brown to call for better concentration levels from his side.

The former Southend United boss added: “We showed them a little bit of respect and they’d won four on the bounce (at home), so they’ve got something going here for sure.

“Their confidence levels were high and we had a game plan to get a foothold in the competition, which was to win the game.

“That was applied to the letter until (Luke) Norris went down – when he got stretchered off two minutes before half-time we fell asleep in the two minutes of extra-time which is something that appears to be happening week in, week out.

“It’s not just one player; it’s everybody and it’s a collective mentality that seems to be sneaking in and not focusing and concentrating for 90 minutes.

“We gave ourselves a mountain to climb but to be fair, apart from a great save from the goalkeeper and Keshi’s (Anderson’s) glaring miss, we should be coming away with a point if not three.”