Colchester United head coach John McGreal says he will begin making decisions from today onwards on his starting line-up against Accrington Stanley.

The U’s have now finished their pre-season friendly programme and will this week prepare for their League Two curtain-raiser at the Wham Stadium, this Saturday.

McGreal has decisions to make in most areas and the U’s boss says he will be watching his players closely, in the coming days.

McGreal said: “This week will be vitally important, in terms of the team selection.

“I know people want to see results in pre-season and getting into that habit.

“But the big thing for me is all of the injury boys coming back.

“We’re missing Kurtis (Guthrie) and Luke (Prosser) for a little bit longer but the other four boys who were out injured at the end of last season have had all of their minutes and are all up to speed.

“It’s a case of them all going as a big group this week to start again for that big game at Accrington on Saturday.

“There are certain areas of our squad where we’re really potent and there’s going to be decisions to be made from Monday onwards for the game on Saturday and it’s one that I’m looking forward to.”

Colchester were beaten 2-1 by Gillingham in their final pre-season friendly of the summer, on Friday night.

They were also beaten 1-0 by Ipswich Town last week having recorded five straight friendly wins prior to that but boss McGreal insists the outcome of those matches was not the priority.

“It’s not about results in pre-season,” added McGreal.

“It’s about ironing out things like the two goals that we conceded against Gillingham and the one against Ipswich.

“At times, you’re coming in after a defeat and it is disappointing but there are tons and tons of positives.

“We didn’t really pass the ball well enough against Ipswich but we did a ton of work on that in the 72 hours before the Gillingham game to get back to what we wanted to do and I think you saw that.

“We obviously have to work on that defending aspect but that’ll come.

“It’s been a great pre-season, a lot better than last season.

“We’re now looking forward to getting underway, now that we know that it’s five and a half weeks of getting the boys up to fitness.

“All of the numbers and the stats are ticked and the sports science department is done.”