“OH… how we love to see Col U win away”- the feeling that we were all full of on our long trip back from Barrow, just over a week ago.

That feels like a lifetime way, after watching the U’s lose at home to Crawley Town, last Saturday.

As the disappointed fans filed out of the JobServe Community Stadium following our very poor showing, it was hard not to wonder how pretty much the same team that fought so hard while down to ten men at Barrow failed to come even close to the same level of performance at home, with a full 11 on the pitch.

While there are some players missing through injury and of course Luke Chambers was suspended, there still should have been enough talent on the pitch to get something out of the game, especially after such a promising first 15 minutes.

We really took the game to them and looked like the goal was bound to follow but then almost like a switch, something changed and we went flat and almost devoid of forward passes.

I always try to find positives over negatives to write about but in all honesty, I was at a loss to find much to cheer about.

The only slight spark of positivity came from goalkeeper Shamal George, who yet again had a decent game to keep the scoreline from being very embarrassing.

Gazette:

Clearly something is not working or clicking and the clue could be in the fact that our away form is much better than our home form.

That's not a good state of affairs, but this could be chiefly down to what most fans are saying - we are lacking a good old number nine.

We have wingers with pace and at times, the creativity to make something happen but no one in the box to actually hit the ball where it needs to go - where's Luke Norris when we need him?

While away from home this doesn’t show up as much, due to teams not sitting back and allowing us to catch them on the counter (Alan Judge’s goal at Barrow is a good example), at home we are the ones expected to attack.

We are failing in the final third to actually get the product without a target man in the box, or even a false nine who will sit on the edge of the D and wait for the ball to be cut back to shoot.

While this only scratches the surface and is a very basic assessment of one thing that is going wrong, what is for sure is that something needs to change.

We cannot allow all our good form and work away from home to be undone at the very place we should be hard to beat.

While losing is never easy to take, it is sometimes more understandable on the road, where at times even a point is deemed a good result.

We have to sort this ASAP, as anyone who attends games will know is obvious - what will be harder is, just how?

Maybe a change of system at home? Or dipping into the current market for players who are still available?

Who knows, maybe it's something even more simple that will click next time round and I can look back on this article and wonder what all the fuss was about.

I’d rather that than see the same old every week; as Albert Einstein once said, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”.

Then again, maybe us fans are the insane ones who keep going and expect something else.

We have Swindon away on Saturday so fingers crossed we carry on our away run and find the missing piece of the jigsaw before our next league home game against Salford in early October.

Up the U’s.

Colchester United season-ticket holder Si Collinson