Colchester United 2 Harrogate Town 1: Simon Weaver slams 'disgraceful' defending

The struggling Sulphurites conceded twice before half-time on their way to a seventh defeat in eight League Two matches, a result which sees their winless run extended into a 10th game and leaves them 22nd in the table.

Fellow strugglers Colchester had managed just the one league victory all season prior to this weekend’s clash and had lost both of their previous two home league matches 1-0, but they needed only eight minutes to break the deadlock.

Town centre-half Rory McArdle failed to deal with Tom Dallison’s hopeful long punt forwards, allowing Kwesi Appiah to run in behind him, take the ball past the exposed Pete Jameson and roll into an empty net.

And things got worse for Harrogate in the 37th minute when Junior Tchamadeu delivered a low cross from the right that was finished off all too easily at the far post by Frank Nouble.

“First half, we were second best physically, got beaten up by a strong team who have been struggling themselves and the goals we gave away were disgraceful for a League Two outfit,” Weaver reflected.

"Our passing was atrocious. The level of the passing was garbage, and we don’t train like that. It’s all about short, sharp passes. You have to earn the right at League Two level in a physical sense, but we were really short at times.

"We all have to look at ourselves and do better and we are striving. We are trying to take the pressure off the lads, we are doing our best to reduce the stress level, but having said that, there is a certain amount of stress when you play football because players have mouths to feed and mortgages to pay and we have to actually confront this pressure and deal with it better.

"We had to change it [at half-time]. It wasn’t good enough. The goals were a joke, we were lazy in terms of reading danger, responding to danger and covering round - and so we had to change it. I wasn’t going to watch the same team out there again.”

Weaver made a double-substitution at the interval and introduced club captain Josh Falkingham and Warren Burrell, a change which led to an improvement in Town’s overall performance level.

They got themselves back into the contest 11 minutes after the resumption when Danny Grant seized on home goalkeeper Sam Hornby’s dreadful attempt to pass the ball out from the back and played through Alex Pattison, who produced a clinical one-on-one finish.

But that was as good as it was to get for Harrogate, who Weaver felt did little for their chances of grabbing an equaliser by resorting to aimless long balls during the closing stages.

"The positives were Josh Falkingham. Danny Grant’s pass, the finish [by Pattison]. We were in it then, back in it,” he added.

"But we still didn’t do enough. Even with nine minutes [of stoppage-time] to go, you have to pass the ball better. They’re on the back foot. You can’t just hit and hope and launch it.

"We didn’t go up this way. Why would I change it? I challenge anyone who is quite rightly asking questions of me, it’s not a directive just to smash it up. We went up playing a certain level of football.

"It wasn’t directed by us, however it is our responsibility.”