Colchester United's U21s have suffered their first defeat of the season.
Birmingham City beat Richard Hall's side 5-0, with their ruthlessness in front of goal the big difference between the two sides.
In a match played at St Andrews, the U’s faced a strong City side who last season were in the Premier Academy League but have now dropped back down to PDL2.
In a game shown live on the home side’s Facebook channel, the U’s got the worst possible start, conceding two goals in the opening four minutes.
In the first minute, Ryan Stirk fed the pass for Manny Longelo’s run down the left, and although Jonathan Leko mishit his shot in the centre, Jobe Bellingham was on hand to fire the shot into the net.
Things then got even worse three minutes later, as a stray pass from Ryan Lowe went straight to Jonathan Leko who accepted the gift before putting his side 2-0 ahead.
It took eleven minutes for the U’s to be a threat as Kaan Bennett was fouled out on the left, but the free kick was comfortably caught by Neil Etheridge. After a good run down the right by Lordan Akolbire, there was a good block on his cross.
After a good interception by Lowe, Bradley Ihionvien dragged his shot well wide and then from the left, Jayden Fevrier flashed an attempt wide of the far post after Ihionvien had won the ball.
From a Lowe corner Fevrier helped the ball on and the acrobatic effort by Bennett was well saved by the home keeper.
At the interval, the U’s made two changes as Redgrave and Ihionvien were replaced by Andrew Palmer-Brown and Kennedy Mupomba.
There was a quiet opening to the second half but on fifty-five minutes, the home triallist gave the ball straight to Tovide who worked the ball onto his left foot, but the triallist then got back to make a block on the shot.
From a cross in by Akolbire, Bennett just failed to reach it and from a Leko cross from the right at the other end, Bellingham headed over.
From a cross by Fevrier, Bennett helped the ball goalwards, but a stooping Stirk headed clear.
The game then ran away from the visitors late on as a superb long ball down the left by Stirk found Jobe Bellingham, who shot inside the near post to make it 3-0 on seventy-four minutes.
With six minutes to go, sub Harley Hamilton found Jonathan Leko on the right who scored with a well struck cross shot.
It was then a hat-trick for home striker Leko, who fired a glorious shot from the left into the roof of the far corner of the net two minutes from time to make the final score 5-0.