John McGreal has revealed the prospect of Wembley glory is spurring his Colchester United players on in their play-off pursuit.

The impressive U’s swept aside Stevenage 4-0 to pull to within two points of the top-seven positions in League Two, with five games remaining.

McGreal says he has been emphasising to his players what an achievement it would be to go back up to League One, via the play-offs.

The U’s head coach, who won promotion to the Premier League at the national stadium as an Ipswich Town player in 2000, says the incentive of achieving success under the arch is driving his team on.

McGreal said: “We keep saying to them: ‘Why wouldn’t you want to play at Wembley?’.

“It’s a fantastic place to go and win a game of football and we have five games to go and 15 points to play for.

“One or two of the boys have done it and I’ve done it as a player, so that’s what I’m trying to flood into the boys.

“We don’t want our season to end – we want to give it as good a go as we can.

“We’ve got something to play for and we’ve kept ourselves in it.

“With the injuries we’ve had and what’s go on through the season, the boys have done us proud and we have a great chance to get to Wembley.”

Colchester brushed Stevenage aside with a superb first-half performance.

Strikes from Brennan Dickenson and Chris Porter set them on their way, before own goals from Boro pair Josh McQuoid and Charlie Lee made it 4-0 before half-time.

The U’s comfortably saw the game out in the second half to secure a valuable three points against a Stevenage side who have been in excellent form.

McGreal said: “I thought the lads were fantastic.

“We did a lot of homework on Stevenage, especially after losing at Notts County.

“I felt as though we needed to come back and put in a performance.

“Stevenage have been terrific with some of the results and performances that they’ve been putting together, so we knew it was going to be a tough game.

“We needed to start well and that gave us the platform to build from.

“We’ve got to make the most out of home displays and we’ve been waiting for these games to come around.

“Our home supporters are getting full value with the performances we’re putting in.”