Colchester United chairman Robbie Cowling will back Cowleys

The U’s secured their League Two status on the final day of the season, the fourth successive year that the club have found themselves in relegation danger.

U’s management duo Danny and Nicky Cowley are set to make big changes to the club’s first-team squad this summer, as they bid to create a team capable of challenging at the right end of the table.

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Colchester owner and chairman Mr Cowling says he is confident lessons have been learnt from this season – and wants to back the U’s management duo to turn around the club’s mindset.

Speaking at the recent U’s season-ticket holders fans’ forum, Mr Cowling said: “As we know, we’ve had four poor seasons – there’s no getting away from that.

“It’s no fun and it’s certainly no fun owning a club when there’s the stress that you could go down and out of the league and the repercussions of that.

“The last two seasons, I made myself a promise that it might cost another few quid but I don’t want to go through another relegation battle.

“I promised myself that last year, that if I put some more money in it, we won’t have another relegation battle.

“I think the biggest lesson I’ve learnt is that you can’t just buy yourself a good season; it doesn’t happen like that.

“There are some lessons that I’ve learned on things that we’ve got wrong, this season.

“We’re confident that we have learned lessons and we can do a lot better.

“The promise that I made last year was that we would have that better budget.

“During the pandemic years, it did affect my businesses and I couldn’t put the money into the team.

“I couldn’t actually be disappointed with the coaches at that time like Hayden (Mullins) because we did have a bottom-six budget and I couldn’t be disappointed that we were spending our time in the bottom six.

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“The last couple of years, we’ve managed to increase the budget but we have been affected by those two years, where we struggled.

“It creates a mindset in the club that’s hard to turn around.

“I’ll promise you a decent budget, next year – I don’t know where that will get us but it should be one that means that we won’t have a relegation battle.

“I guess I’m going to leave it to these guys (the Cowleys) to try to turn around the mindset of the club and get us that winning mentality that they’re clearly used to getting.

“I’ll do my bit and I think everyone at the club really wants us to do well.”

Colchester have experienced a challenging season, with struggles on the field matched by some difficult times off it, with their pitch proving particularly troublesome in the final months of the season.

However, Mr Cowling said he is proud of the way the club’s staff have pulled together, in testing times.

“For me, one of the big successes this year that’s made me most proud of the club is the way that all of the staff at the club have reacted to what we go through,” he added.

“It has been a difficult season.

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“There’s been difficult times at the club but to see the way that Tim (Waddington) and his team and all of the other staff at the club actually dig really deep is great.

“You also see some of our young players and the coaches trying their absolute best.

“There’s so many variables in football and I could easily make excuses about all of the injuries we’ve had and I won’t, because they could potentially come back and be down to us, as to why we had them.

“But to see the way that the people working at the club have taken the criticism on board and dug deep, I’ve been really, really proud of our staff.

“The efforts of this club and the people that work in it are exceptional and sometimes, you only find that out when things are bad and when they’re going not so well.

“You sort of find out who you want to be in the trenches with and we’re really lucky at this club – we’ve got some outstanding people.

“I’m particularly proud of the staff and they go well beyond what they need to do.”