Aldred: Saturday wasn't like us and it's not good enough

The Seasiders crashed to earth after taking 10 points from their previous four games and defender Aldred pulled no punches in his post-mortem.

“We were second to everything and it’s unlike us,” he said. “We didn’t win our individual battles and it wasn’t good enough.

“Things didn’t fall for us on Saturday but we didn’t work hard enough for them to. I just don’t think we were at the races.

“It was an annoying goal for us to concede. It just fell to the lad (Chris Porter). It was very frustrating as a defender but such is life.

“I think Colchester deserved their luck. They were very good compared to us.

“It was frustrating because our results and performances have been good lately.

“For some reason on Saturday, both the performance and the result just weren’t there for us. It’s important now we pick ourselves up and move on.”

Fourth-bottom Pool are now a point behind Shrewsbury, who have two games in hand, and Fleetwood, who have one.

On a weekend which saw Crewe become the first League One side relegated, Colchester’s victory kept their slim survival hopes alive.

They remain eight points from safety with five to play but manager Kevin Keen was delighted with his side.

He said: “I’m extremely happy. We played well the whole game.

“In fact, it was a total performance from my whole team. The whole day was a very good one for Colchester United.

“If we had scored another goal, then that would have been nice because then I would have been able to chill a little.

“But we were the better side for the whole 90 minutes and there were some outstanding performances from my players.”