John McGreal says Colchester United's under-21 players need to be ready to step up to Tony Humes' first-team squad in the coming weeks.

In his programme notes for last Saturday's game against Crawley Town, under-21 boss McGreal said: "A number of the players that Tony uses in the seven weeks may be lads who have been with us in the under-21 squad and they will have to be as ready as the lads who have been in the first team all season.

"I cannot fault the attitude of any of the lads in the under-21 games, they have all put in the required amount of work and as and when they have been thrown in, they have done themselves justice.

"If they had not put that work in, their fitness levels wouldn't have been high enough and that would have shown up massively in the first team games they played."

Colchester's under-21 clash against Huddersfield Town, scheduled for this afternoon, has been postponed.