Colchester United head coach John McGreal hailed winger Brennan Dickenson after his scored one goal and made another in their 2-0 win over Mansfield Town.

Dickenson bagged his tenth goal of an impressive first season for the U's and also set up Sammie Szmodics' goal for Colchester, who moved up to ninth and remain three points off the play-offs in League Two following their win over the Stags.

McGreal said: "There are reasons why the likes of Ipswich Town came knocking on the door for Brennan in January and one or two others I'm sure will in the summer.

"Brennan is a terrific player - we brought him in the summer when he was lacking confidence but this is his best season in football by far.

"He's come to a young, vibrant team and we've told him to go and play.

"He scored with his right foot coming in and he's adapted his game but you also know you're going to get his numbers with his supply, with a great ball in for Sam (Szmodics).

“It was a very hard-earned win for us and it keeps us in and around that top seven, so I’m absolutely delighted.

“We let ourselves down a little bit in losing 4-0 to Portsmouth last Saturday and we analysed the performance and we knew that we needed to improve defensively.

“I thought you saw that against a tough Mansfield team who will push and pull you into certain areas you don’t want to go.

“You’ve got to defend not only first phase but second phase and third phase but I thought to a man with a young team, we defended resolutely."

Colchester went in leading 2-0 at half-time but had to defend for large periods of the second half, as Mansfield pressed them back.

McGreal added: "We've been there this season - at Grimsby the other week, we had all of the possession and lost and at Cambridge, we had a lot of the possession and drew the game.

"Tonight was a different game and we went for a different game plan.

“We scored two good goals in the first half and in the second half, we let them come onto us and tried to counter.

“It didn’t quite work but we’ve all got things to learn and I want to win games of football.”