Miles left flat after U’s force a draw

THE Man of the Match award was scant consolation for Miles Welch-Hayes on Saturday.

The 22-year-old defender was in no doubt Macc should have beaten Colchester, despite the U’s challenging for promotion while Macc are fighting for their League Two lives.

“It was disappointing not to take all three points because we started the game really well and then came out for the second half and started really slow, so we need to stop doing that,” he said.

“I think if we’d started the second half better we’d have had the three points.

“I felt we outplayed them at the start of the game, we started much sharper.

“The gaffer said to us at the break don’t think the game was won and don’t take our foot off the gas and go out there as we’d started the game. But we conceded an early goal which has killed us a bit. We played a lot more football, it was just the goal that killed us.

“I didn’t think it was a penalty – he’s run with the ball and stopped to make contact, which was quite clever of him.

“I think it was two points lost because we could have won that game.”

While the result was a disappointment to Welch-Hayes, Macc boss Sol Campbell insists there has been improvement.

“For me, it’s all about changing the narrative, the mentality and that’s key. It is bringing together the whole team, that kind of belief that we can do it,” he said.

“And from what I see in training we can, we just have to make sure we work as hard, even harder than the team we’re playing against, earn the right to play but also play our football.

“Football is going to get us out of this situation, we’re getting tougher, we’re getting fitter and we are learning all the time.”