Football Season Review

Colchester ended their League One campaign in 16th place, six points above the relegation zone, but their survival was no where as easy as the table suggests, as they needed to collect seven points from their final three matches in order to stay up. Just like last season, the U's main problem has been their inability to score goals: Freddie Sears had a decent season with 12 goals to his name, as did Jabo Ibehre, who scored nine, but the big problem Joe Dunne had to deal with is that he struggled to get goals out of his other players as Colchester's third highest scorer Marcus Bean found the net only five times. The U's looked like strong relegation candidates until midway through the season, as they won their opening two games, but then went on a run of 15 games during which they won only once. In fairness to Dunne and his men, the crisis they had was largely caused by the huge injury list they had during that part of the season, and results started improving in December. The U's sat in midtable in mid January following a run of six games in which they won four times, but they then had an enforced three-week break that cost them their momentum, as they returned to action with a run of six games from which they collected only two points. They remained rather poor in the majority of the final third of their campaign, and their fans were fearing the worst following a 1:0 home defeat to Oldham in the 43rd round. However, the U's went on to draw away at relegation rivals Crewe before crushing an unmotivated Brentford side with a 4:1 scoreline in the penultimate game of the season to secure their survival. In the end, Dunne will be relieved to see his men avoiding the drop once more, the U's will likely have to bring in some quality attacking players during the summer in order to avoid another season of battling against the drop.

Player of the Season: Tom Eastman