NEWPORT County AFC manager Michael Flynn admits he never enjoys trips to Colchester United and he’s expecting another difficult challenge this weekend.

County head to Essex this Saturday in good form having won three and drawn three in the league since losing at Northampton Town on September 14.

But that unbeaten run will be on the line at Colchester, where the Exiles have struggled for years.

“It’ll be very tough,” said Flynn. “I think, on their day, Colchester are one of the best teams in the league.

“They’ve got some really good players and I don’t like going down there. It’s going to be tough Saturday afternoon.”

It’s no wonder that Flynn hasn’t enjoyed his trips to the JobServe Community Stadium with a miserable 3-0 defeat there in March and a 2-0 reverse in February 2018.

County’s struggles in Colchester go back further than that, however, with no win there since 1972 and not even a goal to their name there since 1973.

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There may be some comfort in the fact that the U’s have not won in three games with a defeat at Crawley Town followed by a home loss to bottom club Morecambe last Saturday.

But they were able to pick up a creditable away point on Tuesday at leaders Crewe Alexandra, who are joint top scorers in League Two with second-placed Cheltenham Town.

McGreal told the Colchester Gazette: "We had to improve on Saturday [against Morecambe] – that's been the brief.

"We let ourselves down against Morecambe and in the 45 minutes against Crawley, too.

"The boys have been hurting since Saturday and we've been doing a lot of analysis and we got back to what we're about really.

"We just felt we went toe to toe against the top of the league side.

"We have the players to be able to do that and I think you could see that out there.

"We made a couple of changes from the weekend and we got back to how we performed against the Premier League teams.

"We know what Crewe are about but we weren't wasteful when we had the ball, which was excellent.

"I thought we were very wasteful last Saturday but I thought we were able to get our first turnover away [against Crewe] and our shape was unbelievable.

"We haven't given them a shot on target as such and they've been scoring threes and fours, of late."

Colchester would have won all three points if former Exiles striker Frank Nouble had converted his stoppage-time penalty, but he was denied by Crewe goalkeeper Will Jaaskelainen.

They also had Theo Robinson sent off and the striker, who has scored four goals in 12 appearances since moving from Southend United, will be suspended at the weekend.

“We nearly came away with the win and I don't know what happened at the end,” added McGreal.

"It took forever to give the penalty and whether that hindered Frank, I don't know.

"But he's been brilliant for us – he stood up for it and unfortunately, we weren't able to score but we move on.”

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