COLCHESTER United head coach John McGreal admits he was left baffled by the dramatic late events of his side's 0-0 draw at Crewe Alexandra.

But the U's boss was nevertheless delighted with his side's 'brilliant' display at Gresty Road.

The U's were awarded a penalty deep into stoppage-time after substitute Theo Robinson was involved in an off-the-ball incident with Alex's veteran defender Nicky Hunt, inside the home area.

It resulted in referee Andy Haines eventually showing Robinson a red card and booking Hunt, before awarding a spot-kick to Colchester.

Frank Nouble saw his penalty saved by Crewe keeper Will Jaaskelainen, as the U's held the league leaders to a goal-less draw.

McGreal said: "We nearly came away with the win and I don't know what happened at the end.

"I was standing there with (Crewe manager) David (Artell) and I saw our boy (Theo Robinson) get sent off and their boy (Nicky Hunt) get booked.

"Then I saw everyone run to the linesman, which I don't think you can do anyway.

"It took forever to give the penalty and whether that hindered Frank, I don't know.

"But he's been brilliant for us - he stood up for it and unfortunately, we weren't able to score but we move on.

"We came away to Crewe and put in a brilliant performance.

"We had to improve from Saturday - that was the biggest thing and we've done that."

Colchester were able to pick up a creditable away point at Crewe, who are joint top scorers in League Two with second-placed Cheltenham Town.

McGreal switched to a 4-2-3-1 formation and made four changes to his side against Alex, after back-to-back league defeats.

It resulted in a solid performance by Colchester, who produced a disciplined and organised display against the leaders.

McGreal said: "We had to improve on Saturday (against Morecambe) - that's been the brief.

"We let ourselves down against Morecambe and in the 45 minutes against Crawley, too.

"The boys have been hurting since Saturday and we've been doing a lot of analysis and we got back to what we're about really.

"We just felt we went toe to toe tonight against the top of the league side.

"We have the players to be able to do that and I think you could see that out there.

"We made a couple of changes from the weekend and we got back to how we performed against the Premier League teams.

"We know what Crewe are about but I just felt when we had the ball we weren't wasteful, which was excellent.

"I thought we were very wasteful last Saturday but I thought tonight we were able to get our first turnover away and our shape was unbelievable.

"We haven't given them a shot on target as such and they've been scoring threes and fours, of late."