John McGreal insists Colchester United are a club that players want to join this summer.

But the U’s head coach expects to make fewer signings than in last year’s close season.

Colchester signed a host of new faces prior to the 2016-17 campaign, as McGreal shaped a squad to compete in League Two following relegation.

The likes of Brennan Dickenson, Kurtis Guthrie and Craig Slater were among the players who arrived at the Community Stadium in the summer of 2016.

But although he is still awaiting answers from ten out-of-contract players, Colchester boss McGreal believes he has the core of a strong squad as he prepares for his second year at the helm.

McGreal said: “I don’t think we’ll need the same quantity of players coming in again, this summer.

"We’ve got the basis of a really strong squad and you’ve seen that with players like Cameron James and Diaz Wright coming into the first-team set-up.

“We know what is expected in our group and what the second division is all about.

“We’re a club that players do want to come to - good players want to come here and there’s a lot for us to be shouting about.

“We had a few irons in the fire early on, last season. There were 11 players that left so we had to act pretty quickly.

“At this minute, we have a lot of players who are coming back from injury who we know will be tied down to the club anyway, so we know they’ll be back on the first day of pre-season.”

Colchester are still waiting for responses from the likes of Tom Eastman, Chris Porter and George Elokobi on whether they will be staying with the club, next season.

The likes of Drey Wright, Richard Brindley and Lewis Kinsella are also among the out-of-contract players offered new terms.

McGreal added: “I think we have a very strong basis of a strong squad, which is obviously dependant on the players who we’ve offered deals too who we want to keep.

“We know what we need in the back of our mind if negotiations don’t go as well as we think they should do.

“We want to keep this core group and I think we’ve played a part in these players performing as well as they have done.”

Colchester will host a West Ham XI in a pre-season friendly on July 18, kick-off 7.45pm.