Colchester United 2, Southend United 0 (From Echo)

Colchester United 2, Southend United 0

9:38pm Monday 8th February 2010

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COLCHESTER United's sand-covered pitch is more suited to rugby than football right now.

And, following tonight's 2-0 defeat at the Weston Homes Community Stadium, Blues find themselves trying to tackle the serious threat of relegation.

Steve Tilson's side have now gone five games without a win and are just two points above the drop zone.

Four of the seven teams below them in the League One standings also have games in hand and there were few glimmers of hope in this reasonably uneventful Essex derby.

It took Colchester just three minutes to open the scoring as the Shrimpers conceded an embarrassing opener following mistakes from both of their centre-backs.

First, Jean Yves M'Voto slipped inside the penalty area and that enabled Clive Platt to roll the ball into the path of Anthony Wordsworth.

His low effort lacked pace and should have been cleared off the goal-line by Adam Barrett but the red faced Southend skipper kicked the ground instead of the ball and it trickled into the back of the net.

The Shrimpers soon hit back and created their first chance of the evening in the 13th minute when Damian Scannell burst down the right flank and delivered a deep cross which picked out Francis Laurent.

But the Frenchman's downward header was kept out by U's goalkeeper Ben Williams.

Having survived the scare, Colchester soon almost made it 2-0 but Mildenhall did well to parry a left wing cross from Marc Tierney away from John-Joe O'Toole.

Colchester continued to look dangerous in attack with their physical forwards causing problems for the Blues back four but there were limited goalscoring opportunies.

Southend did manage to create one in the 38th minute when Scannell again caused from the right hand side but Scott Spencer, who was making his first start for the Shrimpers, could only scuff a close range effort straight at Williams.

His strike partner Francis Laurent then prodded an effort wide of the left post after bursting in off the wing but, at the start of the second half, it was Colchester who attacked first with O'Toole volleying over from 10 yards.

Southend responded with their own spell of pressure but struggled to create clear cut chances in front of goal as a deep Colchester defence stood firm before they doubled their lead in the 62nd minute as the Shrimpers again conceded from a corner.

This time David Prutton's flag kick from the left hand side was nodded back across goal by Kayode Odejayi and Wordsworth tapped home from inside the six yard box for his fourth goal in three games against Blues.

That killed off the game as a contest but Southend tried to get back into things by bringing on Matt Paterson in place of Spencer in the 73rd minute.

He immediately wasted his side's best chance of scoring as the striker's low shot – which followed neat approach play from Scannell was blocked by the legs of Williams.

Mildenhall then did likewise to Steven Gillespie at the other end of the pitch before Franck Moussa' long range shot was pushed wide of the left post by Williams.

The resulting corner was headed home by Barrett but the effort was ruled out for a foul by referee Nigel Miller and that summed up a frustrating evening for the struggling Shrimpers.

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