Izzet: Hard To Forget Last Year

Colchester`s midfielder Kem Izzet has admitted that the memory of the club`s most successful season of all time in 2006-7 is weighing heavy this time around.

The 27-year-old admits, inevitably, that a rise in expectation after a near play-off experience less than twelve months ago has now lead to fans being underwhelmed.

“I don’t think the success has made it any more difficult for us,” he told a rival fanzine.”But what tends to happen is expectation levels go up, the crowd seem to think we should be scoring three and four every week against teams that are very good sides.”

Rival teams have changed thier approach, adapting to the U`s attacking style; the side itself has also altered, after a summer exodus of staff.

“It’s not as easy as that because teams come to our place now and they put eight or nine men behind the ball and try and catch us on the break, whereas we’ve been used to people coming to our ground and showing us no respect.

“We’ve found it at times hard to break down, because they’re all decent teams in this league but if we can make the right decisions at times when we’re probably not, then I’m sure we’ll get out of this predicament.”

The predicament, of course, is that the U`s are stuck at the foot of the Championship, although they are undefeated since the turn of the year, even if that is only because there have been just two league games following a cancelation of the Hull game last weekend.

“It’s hard to forget about last year,” Izzet added, “but then you’ve got to realise that the whole squad has pretty much changed.

He concludes: “The quality is definitely there and as long as we keep working on the training pitch and bringing that into the games, we’ll be fine.”