Tony Humes admits his Colchester United players were left devastated by their disappointing 3-2 defeat at the hands of Sheffield United.

The U's appeared to be heading to a second successive victory with seven minutes to go, thanks to goals from George Moncur and Freddie Sears.

But the Blades then launched a dramatic comeback and a brace from Ben Davies, along with substitute Ryan Flynn's tap-in, saw the visitors score three times in the space of five minutes to claim an unlikely victory.

U's boss Humes said: “The players are very disappointed and they’re very down.

“But we have to recognise that and learn from it.

“There was a bit of naivety and a bit of inexperience.

“We got stretched when we had the game won and that’s part of their learning and development.

“When you have young players you have to learn how to manage a game and see it out and win it and unfortunately, we didn’t do it.

"There was an awful lot of good stuff in there - we passed the ball and we were comfortable.

"It comes down to game management and decision-making.

"Did we make the right decisions at the right time? For 82 minutes, we did and Freddie Sears was fantastic out there.

"But sustaining it is another thing.

"It's massively disappointing - we played a top team in Sheffield United and for 82 minutes there were a lof positives from take from it."

For a full match report and pictures from the U's game with Sheffield United, see Wednesday's Gazette.