Tony Humes admits Colchester United might need to win at least half of their remaining games to stay in League One.

But the U’s boss is still adamant his players are good enough to keep the club in the third tier for an eighth successive season.

The U’s lie two points adrift of safety with 12 games remaining, after they were beaten 1-0 at home by Notts County on Tuesday night.

Colchester squandered the chance to move out of the relegation zone, after the other five teams in the bottom six also lost.

The U’s have failed to string back-to-back wins together all season and Humes says it is essential they find some consistency in the crucial final weeks of the campaign.

Humes said: “We don’t know how many wins we’ll need to stay up.

“It could be six but we might need more than that, the way teams are getting results.

“But there’s nothing to say that we can’t do that and we’ll take each game at a time, which is what we’ve done all season.

“As we’ve said many times this season, it’s been one step forwards and one or two backwards.

“That’s the consistency we have to get but the players are good enough to keep us in League One.

“They’ve shown it on so many occasions this season that they are and they have to show that now.

“We’re not thinking that we’re favourites to go down - you can’t think like that.

“You have to be positive in everything you do.

“Every day we get them working and they go out to make themselves better as individuals and as a team.

“The Notts County game has gone and we’ll continue to look at it with the inquest to see what we can do better.

“We obviously have to stick together and nothing’s impossible until it’s done.”

Colchester have now suffered 11 league defeats at the Weston Homes Community Stadium, following the Magpies loss.

No team in any of the top four divisions in English football has lost more home games than the U’s, this season.

Humes said: “The home form has been an issue for the last couple of years and we haven’t resolved it.

“We’ve tried playing different formations and different ways, to try and work it out.”

For a three-page preview of the U's game with Rochdale, see Friday's Daily Gazette.