Banter With Burns - CUSA chairman Jon Burns with his weekly thoughts on Colchester United

What can I possibly say or do to put the smiles back on the faces of Colchester United supporters?

A lottery win would help and would certainly ensure best mate status with Robbie for a few years.

I could always try to bribe the Football League tribunal panel, who will judge the Lambert situation next week.

A 20-point deduction would make life interesting, but I’d have to keep my dirty dealings quiet.

Oh dear, perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it in this column!

What else?

It’s difficult really because I’m not exactly going to bang in a couple of goals tomorrow, which is what we need in truth.

Where have our strikers gone?

The goal-fest at Norwich led us to believe that we’d be scoring for fun this season, but sadly our centre forwards have collectively dried up.

Blame that on them or attribute the problem to the style of play and a lack of service/support from midfield – it’s up to you.

Perhaps now isn’t the time for a painful and messy post-mortem of the season, especially the 2010 part anyway.

There is a massive game to win tomorrow and if the players and fans stray from that mission at all against Tranmere, then they will not only find that Rovers will happily beat us because they need the points, but if Stockport do actually overcome Huddersfield then we would have missed our chance.

A David Perkins hat-trick would be nice!

So how will the U’s beat Tranmere?

Woody must return, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of Ian Henderson because these are almost the only two guys scoring at present.

That means that either Henderson or Vincent could play up front.

It also may mean that Aidy should risk upsetting Lisbie, who seems to London-bound anyway, and play him on the right of midfield.

Everyone I speak to agrees that he’s been incredibly effective there.

And if it’s service that we need, is David Fox our saviour?

He’s hardly kicked a ball since we lost here to Norwich.

At the other end, after some of the Hartlepool goals were labelled as stupid defensively, our boys at the back should on paper have a quieter day because Tranmere have only scored 11 goals in 21 games away from home this season.

I hope this statistic doesn’t come back to haunt me!

The only change in defence I would make is a difficult one because he’s at Southend.

So it’s “simples” really.

Win tomorrow, Stockport do the business, we upset Huddersfield at their place, ask Scott McGleish for a few own goals the following week, hope that Exeter need the points in their final game and score loads and loads of goals in the process.

What are we all worried about?

Seriously though, I know that there’s a lot of hurt out there among the fans and I’ve lost count of the times that I’ve heard the phrase “blown it”.

It’s been quite a fall and although I always thought that one team would plummet, I never expected it to be the U’s.

You can do the maths until you’re blue (and white) in the face, but just two or three extra victories would have done it.

Hindsight is a wonderful quality and is something I will use with style come the post-mortem.

It also seems that Aidy has already made plans for next season.

Firstly, I would like to see him stay and build his own team through pre-season.

I’ve been lucky enough to hear him address meetings several times and he can certainly talk the talk.

I’m not so sure, though, that he should be using his lack of pre-season as a reason for the current difficulties. He is talking about players leaving and budgets.

The squad grew immeasurably this season and needs to be trimmed.

I would suspect that some of our lads are very well paid and if they’re in that bracket and haven’t performed then they’ll be encouraged elsewhere.

Talking of next season and I’m delighted to say that the CUSA have met with the U’s on a couple of occasions recently to talk about ways to drive more support from the area.

Linked to this, I was disturbed to hear a comment while standing in a check-out queue last weekend as I was talking to a friend about the U’s.

“Colchester – they’re a Mickey Mouse club” were the rough words used by an elderly gentleman, who I suspect had been a local resident for a number of years.

Is this the true feeling in the town?

I would be devastated if it was and it would certainly make our task a whole lot harder.

Finally, a few snippets of information.

If you haven’t heard already, the Essex Senior Cup Final is going to be played next season now.

And then, if you like a bit of pedal power, fancy raising a little bit of money for charity and would like to cycle to the Orient game with other U’s fans then please visit our website www.cusa.co.uk or call us for details of the fourth U’s bike ride in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust – Portman Road to WHCS.

Good luck U’s and have a great weekend everyone.

Up the U’s!