Colchester United boss John McGreal has played down talk of today's home clash with fellow promotion hopefuls Carlisle United being a six pointer.

The U’s head into League Two game at the JobServe Community Stadium in sixth spot, just five points off the automatic promotion places after claiming seven points from a possible nine in their last three games.

They face a Carlisle side who lie just a point – and a place – below them in the table and have promotion aspirations of their own but boss McGreal says all he and his Colchester players are focused on is securing three points.

McGreal said: “We’ve both been in and around it for the majority of the season but there’s 13 games left.

“We’re still in February and there’s no way we’ll be getting carried away.

“It’s three points at the end of the day and it’s three points at home that we can try and win.

“It’s a game of football and there’s three points to be won – I don’t want to dress it up any more than that because there’s a lot more points to play for.

“We don’t want to lose focus of what’s going on above us, what’s going on below us and what’s going on around us.

“All we can affect is how we try and perform in front of our home fans.

“We’re trying to win games of football – that’s been the case from and I won’t get side-tracked from that.

“February has been a decent month up to now but we know it’s going to be a very difficult match against a fellow team that’s in and around the play-offs.”

Carlisle thrashed Colchester 4-0 when the two sides met at Brunton Park, last December – but McGreal insists the U’s have moved on quickly from that painful defeat.

“The 4-0 defeat was a long time ago,” said McGreal.

“I’m trying to think back to last week, never mind the early part of December.

“We won’t get involved in any kind of revenge talk or this, that and the other.

“They beat us fair and square on the day and they were very good on the day.

“They were just turning results around under John Sheridan – I know there’s a new manager in charge there now in Steve (Pressley) and I know he’s trying to carry it on.

“Performance-wise against MK Dons, they were very good last week.

“We know it’s going to be difficult but that game two months ago is one where we’ve totally moved on from.

“We’re in a position now where we’re looking to improve on our last game against Macclesfield, where we took a point and that’s something to build on.

“I know they’ve lost a couple of late but Carlisle have been in really hot form.

“It’s one that we’re really looking forward to, knowing that we’ve been on a really good run.

“It’s a great game – Carlisle will come to us in confident mood.

“I know they’ve lost a couple of late but performance-wise, they’ve been good and they were down to ten men at Crewe, in their last away match.

“They’re a really good football, passing team and play a good style like we do - we know what to expect.

“They’ll come with a lot of threats in their team and we’ll have to be right on the money to try and take care of that but also implement our own style of play.”