COLCHESTER United’s youngest-ever appearance maker Todd Miller has shown he has the potential to go from strength to strength after making his first-team debut.

That’s the view of his U’s team-mate and fellow academy graduate Frankie Kent, who believes the talented teenager can make future progress, following his senior bow.

Miller, who is 16 years and 166 days old, made history when he came on as a late substitute in Colchester’s 3-0 defeat at Exeter City last weekend.

The Year 11 pupil at Shenfield High School became the youngest player to ever represent the club, surpassing previous holder Lindsay Smith who at 16 years 214 days old was 48 days older, at the time of his U’s first-team bow.

Kent also progressed through Colchester’s youth set-up before making his senior debut at the age of 18 and the defender says he is pleased for Miller.

“I’m really happy for Todd,” said Kent, who also attended Shenfield High School.

“He’s from my school which is Shenfield and he’s talented.

“He came on and got in a couple of good positions, so you can see he’s a good player.

“Hopefully, he’ll get more chances this year and kick on next year.”

Miller’s debut was a bright moment on an otherwise disappointing afternoon for Colchester at Exeter, where a third defeat in four matches saw them drop out of the play-off positions.

The U’s are now a point off the top-seven with eight games to go but centre-back Kent is already looking ahead to their home clash with fellow promotion hopefuls Tranmere Rovers, this weekend.

“We have to take a positives from the situation we’re in,” added the U’s centre-back.

“There are eight games to go and a lot of points still to play for, some against teams around us which can help.

“Being at home at the weekend is going to help a lot, so we just need everyone to get behind us and hopefully we can try and put it right.

“It’s three losses in four games which isn’t good enough, for where we want to be.

“Confidence might be an issue but every single player out there has to take more responsibility to try and make us better and turn the situation around.

“I can’t really get my head around what’s happening at the moment.

“We’re just going to have to keep on working at it.

“We’ll do everything we can to keep on trying and make it right.”

Colchester fell behind at Exeter to Matt Jay’s goal, just before half-time.

And further goals in the second half from Lee Holmes and Nicky Law condemned the U’s to defeat.

Kent added: “Their first goal changed the game and it affected us a bit too much.

“But we started the second half really well – we probably should have scored and had a couple of chances.

“But then we conceded another sloppy goal and were then chasing the game.

“I feel like we had the chances again to score and put the pressure on them but we didn’t and they scored again, so it’s not good enough.”