Colchester United manager Tony Humes was disappointed with the "soft" goals his side conceded in sliding to a 2-1 home defeat at the hands of Port Vale.

Second-half goals from Mark Marshall and Colin Daniel in quick succession left the U's trailing 2-0, after Freddie Sears had seen his first-half penalty saved by Valiants goalkeeper Chris Neal.

And although Sears pulled a goal back for Colchester late on, it was not enough to prevent them from slipping to a first defeat in five league games.

Humes said: “It was disappointing and we weren’t as good as we have been – it was a tough game for us.

“We started indifferently but we were slowly getting into it and had the penalty gone in, it would have been a totally different game.

“Port Vale would have had to open up a bit and I think we’d have had enough to counter them but it didn’t work like that.

“We conceded two soft goals in three minutes, which was disappointing."

Humes admitted that his young U's side found it difficult to break a more experienced Port Vale side down.

“That’s where we’ve got this big learning curve going on with our young players, where they’ve got to believe in what we’re trying to do when it doesn’t go quite right," said the U's boss.

“We came up against a team of experienced players who tried to stop us from playing and didn’t quite have enough to break them down.

“We have to keep believing what we’re doing is right.

“They didn’t create a lot but neither did we and it was a tough game."

For five pages of coverage of the U's game with Port Vale, see Monday's Daily Gazette.