Colchester United boss Danny Cowley on final-day clash

The U’s know a point against play-off chasing Alex will be enough to secure their League Two status tomorrow, regardless of Sutton United’s result at MK Dons.

Colchester lie three points above Sutton in the table and are in the driving seat, heading into the final day.

If the U’s were to lose 1-0 against Crewe and Sutton were to win 3-0 at MK Dons, then the two teams would be level on points, goal difference and goals scored, as well as a tied head-to-head record.

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In that event, the team with the highest number of wins will finish in the higher league position.

And as Colchester have won two more games to Sutton, they would stay up.

However, boss Cowley says there is only one thing on his mind and that’s winning the game.

Cowley said: “We went into April after beating Newport County and drew with Tranmere and had a good Easter weekend but found ourselves in the bottom two.

“I think at that point, we’d have all cut our right arm off to be in the position that we’re in going into Saturday.

“We understand all of the permutations and we’re clear on what we have to do.

“We have a three-point advantage on Sutton.

“I think the four-goal swing and the three goals that we’ve scored more than them so if they don’t score four goals, then we actually have five goals over Sutton.

“I think it then goes to the head to head which were draws and after that, it goes to wins and we’ve got two more wins than them.

“We understand all this but I’ll be honest, the only permutation I’m interested in is winning and we’ve prepared to win a game, like we always do.

“I don’t actually know how to prepare a team in any other way, so our focus is just on performing really well and if we do that and everybody does their jobs which we have real confidence that they will, then we’ll get the performance and the outcome that we want.”

Colchester go into their game against Crewe on the back of two straight defeats but Cowley says there are plenty of positives for them to focus on.

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“For us, it’s always been about process and getting the performance right,” said the U’s boss.

“Ultimately, the outcomes then take care of themselves.

“The off-field work has been around showing the players the good things that we did on Tuesday and then how we think some of those things can help us, going into the game against Crewe.

“Sometimes, when you finish the game like we did in the last 15 minutes, mistakes are at the forefront of everyone’s mind and some of the good work that we did can then get forgotten about.

“We’ve had a good look at Crewe in our opposition analysis work and a clear idea of their strengths and also the areas where we feel we might be able to exploit.

“We have total clarity over what we’re going to do and we’re looking to attack the game.”

Colchester lost 4-1 at home to in-form Doncaster Rovers on Tuesday night, in a game where they were punished for their mistakes.

Cowley added: “I think for us, it’s always to own our performance.

“The over-riding emotion I think on Tuesday night was frustration, because we’d actually done a lot well.

“We played against a team that have won ten straight and we were really competitive.

“If anything, we were the protagonist in the game and we were the team in the ascendency.

“Mistakes will happen in football; the biggest mistake that you can make as a footballer is trying not to make a mistake.

“It wasn’t really the mistakes we were disappointed with; it was more the reaction to the mistake and that’s something we can improve in.

“We need to take ownership, take the learning from it and try to move forward quickly with real positivity.”