Banter with Burns with Colchester United Supporters Association chairman Jon Burns

WE'RE 24 hours away from one of the many 'six-pointer' games that the U’s can look forward to before the end of the season.

Over half of our remaining fixtures are up against our rivals currently sitting in the top ten positions. Should we be worried, or will this be to the U’s advantage?

It is a long held theory that the U’s always seem to struggle against teams dawdling around the lower reaches of the table.

On the flip side, they seem to engage better and excel when they take on the high flyers.

It is an opinion that it widely shared but I regret that I have no facts behind it - let’s see if it helps us to a successful top seven or even top-three finish.

It was kind of proven at Macclesfield, last Saturday.

A throwback ground with very friendly fans and a superb view of the peak district, it was just a pity that they wouldn’t let the impressive number of travelling U’s onto the terracing behind the goal and also failed to find the floodlight switch until half-time.

In the gloom of the first half, our U’s did not play well at all. Sol Campbell’s men were much improved from the last time we played and had a game plan ahead of ours.

Their big chap, Harry Smith, gave Luke Prosser and Frankie Kent some serious issues and it needed a Plan B from John McGreal and the intro of Tom Eastman to help contain him and also give the U’s more of the ball with the new shape.

We were vastly improved in the second half and should have finished them off after Frank Nouble’s early spot-kick.

It was good to see Callum Roberts get more minutes but we did lose the width a bit when he came on for Courtney Senior.

It was a pity to really have two enforced subs with the formation change and then Tom Lapslie’s injury otherwise McGreal could have used more of the bench ammunition to win the game.

Still, a point was not the end of the world. The U’s are still in the hunt and most of the games in hand around us have been used up.

The table is tight though and you can look all the way down to 15th to see that the point gap could be greater.

It is going to be an interesting and rollercoaster couple of months.

Hope that we can get a good crowd in for tomorrow against Carlisle.

They have lost their last two and we own them some revenge from earlier in the season, so I am sure that U’s will be gunning for them.

Thanks for your support if you are coming along.

Jon Burns, Colchester United Supporters Association chairman