Hammond Hopeful U's Can Survive

Colchester United midfielder Dean Hammond is hopeful that the U`s can haul themselves to Championship survival.

Hammond, a £250k January signing from Brighton, hailed the U`s team spirit and determination. The 25-year-old is starting to establish himself in the first-team and believes he and his team-mates can avoid Championship relegation, just like he did at Brighton a few seasons ago.

He told CU-FC.com: 'When I was at Brighton, we had a season when we were down near the bottom for pretty much the whole campaign but we got out of it towards the end.'

'As long as the players are together as a group and the spirit remains strong, we've always got a chance.' Hammond explained.

'All the boys here work extremely hard in training and work hard for each other in the games so we are just looking for that bit of luck I think.'

'In the next year at Brighton, when we did get relegated, we were missing a bit of team spirit and camaraderie for some reason and that cost us our Championship status.'

'I see a lot of similarities between the team here and the Brighton team that survived relegation in terms of spirit and determination.

He also admitted: 'I'm hoping that the outcome will be the same and we can get out of the bottom three between now and the end of the season.'