Matt Bloomfield felt his Colchester side deserved their point after the 1-1 draw with League Two automtaic-promotion hopefuls Stevenage.

Colchester took a sixth-minute lead when Marley Marshall-Miranda lashed a superb shot into the top corner from Alex Newby’s short lay-off, after a patient attacking move by the hosts.

But Stevenage equalised 11 minutes later through Danny Rose, who headed firmly past Sam Hornby from close range, from Jordan Roberts’ pass.

Despite the point, Colchester dropped to the bottom of the table but head coach Bloomfield was nevertheless encouraged by his side’s display.

Bloomfield said: “I thought we deserved the point. He (Steve Evans) has recruited extremely well in the summer.

“When I was at Wycombe, I was reading about what was going on at Stevenage and I knew they were going to be very, very good this season.

“We played them at Wycombe in the EFL Trophy and they blew us away that night so I certainly wasn’t under any illusions about what was coming today.

“They’ve got a very good team – people say they go back to front but they’ve got some very good footballers as well and you can’t be too dismissive of that. I thought our boys stood up to the task.

“We went ahead and when it went to 1-1, I thought we were losing a little bit of the ascendency so we changed formation, made a couple of changes and I thought it sparked a little bit more energy and life into us.”

Stevenage twice hit the woodwork, with Colchester defender Tom Dallison’s goal-line clearance from Luke Norris’ strike rattling the underside of the bar in the first half and Carl Piergianni hitting the bar with a stoppage-time header but the visitors were held.

Evans said: “I think we’ve got to be disappointed. As an experienced manager, the warm up was a shambles.

“I told them, tried to address it and for 15 minutes, we started like that.

“We gave him (Marley Marshall-Miranda) an opportunity to strike and it was a great goal.

“After 10 to 15 minutes, we made a couple of challenges and settled into the game.

“We equalised, we hit the underside of the bar and we were totally dominant, up until half-time.

“We said to them ‘forget the first 15 minutes and concentrate on what we do in the second half’.

“But I thought we went too direct and our quality on the ball wasn’t good enough.

“I need to look back why we weren’t given a penalty later on when there was a hand save from a defender.

“But, listen, we need to look at ourselves and do a lot more because it’s two points that we’ve not won.”