Jack Payne said Colchester United had shown a ‘great mentality’ in the last week, after they beat MK Dons on Saturday.

Payne netted in stoppage time, against his former club, to seal the 2-0 win and wrap up three points for the U’s after Arthur Read had given them the lead on 81 minutes.

And speaking of Colchester’s overall performance, Payne said: “We know what MK are like, they’re a really good side.

“We knew we were going to suffer with the ball, at times, and we had to soak up that pressure.

"We also knew that we are really fit, well-structured and we knew we were going to have chances, which we did. It felt like we could have scored more. Once we got our goal, we built on that.”

For his goal, Payne had initially squandered a chance, after Milton Oni expertly picked him out, after winning possession for the U’s.

He added: “To be honest, the only thing I am gutted about is that I didn’t get Milton an assist because, he won the ball back so well, he played a great pass to me, and he deserved the assist.

“I didn’t finish the first one. But luckily, it fell to [Arthur] Read, who dropped it to me. I think a few of the lads wanted me to go to the corner. I thought ‘I’m just going to give it a go’. I was so pleased to see it go into the back of the net.”

Colchester’s victory on Saturday capped a strong week for the club.

They had knocked Reading out of the Carabao Cup, on penalties, on Tuesday and now have their first points of the new League Two season.

But it also marks a stark comparison to the previous week’s disappointing loss to AFC Wimbledon.

Payne spoke highly of the way the U’s have bounced back since, adding: “Although I think the result was far from ideal, we learned so much from the game. The way we started gave us a lot of belief and we started really fast on Tuesday. So, we had that belief.

“We learned a lot from some of the mistakes we made versus Wimbledon, and we’ve taken them into the next two games and if you’re ever going to take a positive from losing, it’s how much you can learn from it. And we’ve taken that.

"It’s been a great mentality, the last two games, to be honest. Obviously, first home league game today, it was really important that we got a good result and build that relationship with the fans, which was massive.”