Morecambe boss Derek Adams was full of praise for his players after they went sixth in Sky Bet League Two with a 3-0 victory over Colchester at the Mazuma Stadium.

Goals from Adam Phillips, Toumani Diagouraga and John O‘Sullivan gave the Shrimps the three points as they made the most of Colchester being reduced to 10 men when skipper Harry Pell was sent off after squaring up to Ryan Cooney just before the hour.

Adams said: “It was an excellent performance and another good win that took us up to sixth in the table and also extended our unbeaten run at home to 11 games.

“We passed the ball well on a difficult surface and our link-up play and understanding of each other got us into really good areas.

“We put some good crosses into good areas to get the goals and you can only do that with good football players which we have here at this club.

“The first goal was fantastic and came at a great time.

“The second half started with another really well worked goal and when they had a man sent off we kept our patience and got another 10 minutes from time to seal a really good win.”

Colchester head coach Steve Ball was left frustrated after his side had large spells on top in the first half and hit the woodwork twice.

He said: “Anyone who saw the first half would know we were the better team and we were unlucky to hit the post on two occasions.

“We executed our game plan to perfection and had four or five great efforts on goal and had some great chances to put people through on goal but didn’t make the most of them.

“I really think that if we had taken our chances and scored first it would have been a different game and I think we would have scored two or three.

“When they scored in first-half injury time it really changed the dynamics of the game. It was their first real chance and they took it and that was the difference in the half.

“We started the second half pretty well but the game changed again when they scored a second and Harry was sent off just after that.

“They were key moments and they had the better of the key moments which seems to be the way things are going for us at the moment and we have to make sure we put that right.”