Leyton Orient defender Scott Cuthbert believes the O’s ‘let themselves down’ in the second half as they slumped to a 2-0 loss at home to 10-man Colchester United on Saturday.

Sanchez Watt and Freddie Sears profited from errors from the hosts to take all three points, and even though they were playing against 10 men, Cuthbert admits there’s no room for sloppy defending.

“It was disappointing,” said Cuthbert. “I thought in the first half we run them down slowly but surely.

“They had the man sent off and even in the second half we carried on where we left off in the first half but then there was a few sloppy moments and we know ourselves that we didn’t do ourselves justice in the second half.

“When you defend sloppy against any team in this league they’ll punish you and unfortunately that’s what happened.

“I think we let ourselves down and in the second half we just didn’t perform well enough. The game was there for us to win it but unfortunately we didn’t do that.”

Colchester looked set up for the counter attack when they had 11 men, and Cuthbert felt the sending off of Magnus Okuonghae just before the half-time break made little impact on the U’s style of play in the second period.

“Them going down to 10 men didn’t change the mentality too much,” he added.

“I think in the first half with 11 they sat back making it hard for us and try to catch us on the break.”