Bradford City boss suffered heaviest loss at Colchester

Hughes takes his Bantams to Colchester – where they were beaten 3-0 on Easter Monday.

The bulk of the team may be very different from the one thrashed at the JobServe Community Stadium in April.

But the manager has not forgotten his heaviest defeat since taking charge of the club.

Hughes said: “It’s a new group so not too many of the ones involved that day are around.

“But I’m still here – I remember it, so it’s a case of making sure we put that right.

“It wasn’t a great day. It was our poorest performance we produced when I first came in and we need to address that.”

Andy Cook, Alex Gilliead and Lee Angol were the only survivors from that game to start in City’s win over Newport on Saturday. But Hughes certainly has a score to settle.

“I think managers keep the scars longer than player at times,” he added. “Players can get bad memories out their system quite readily by playing the next game – managers dwell on past results a bit longer than they should.

“I think I don’t dwell on them too often but it’s just about learning from those situations and making sure you’re better in similar circumstances next time round.

Paudie O'Connor is sent off during City's 3-0 defeat in April

“That’s what we’ll endeavour to do. I feel we’ll be a better side than the one that played last time out so that’s an advantage for us.

“It’s not going to be easy but we’ve got to keep doing the things that we know affect opposition teams. It’s about banging the drum about what we need to do well.”

While City have made wholesale changes since their last Essex meeting four months ago, Colchester have signed just four players in the window.

Hughes added: “That’s quite surprising. But they might benefit from that early in the season because the players know each other and what they’re about.

“From our point of view, we know what we’re facing. We’ll see what they put out in front of us and try to deal with whatever team they’ve got.”