SWINDON Town boss Phil Brown says his players must use their slender defeat to Colchester United as a learning experience.

Brown’s men slipped to a 1-0 defeat at the Colchester Community Centre in a game where chances were few and far between.

Sammie Szmodics got the goal to separate the two teams after Town switched off from a throw-in late in the first half.

After going ahead, John McGreal’s United made life difficult for Swindon and subsequently held out for a home win, their fifth in a row.

Former Hull City boss Brown says he admires the resilience of the U’s and warned his players that they must replicate those characteristics soon if they are to turn their stagnating season around.

“We have to keep working at it. We will keep working at the individuals and the collective group,” said Brown.

“I seem to be saying the same thing week in, week out, and John will be saying the same thing because they’re winning games.

“They’ve beaten Lincoln City 1-0 and now they have beaten us 1-0.

"Did they deserve to beat us? No, because if you look at the game as a whole, apart from picking the ball out of his net, I don’t think Lawrence Vigouroux had too much to do.

“Their goalkeeper pulled off a world class save to keep them in the game. If it goes to 1-1, we probably would have gone on to win the game when you look at our form in these kind of games.

“We have come away from Colchester with nothing. We have to learn something from this. We have to learn that when you’re playing well, you’ve got that confidence, and at the moment, we don’t have it yet.

“I can’t keep on saying there is a turnover in players, a lack of consistency in team selection or game plan.

“I have to make changes before the next game, whether that is York City in the FA Cup or Carlisle in the league.”

The defeat sees Swindon drop to 16th in the League Two standings with the Energy Check County Ground men now seven points adrift of the play-off places and 10 points above the relegation spots.