COLCHESTER United head coach John McGreal expects Plymouth Argyle to be in the League Two promotion shake-up, this season.

The U’s take on the much-fancied Pilgrims today, looking to enhance their own credentials in the opening weeks of the new campaign.

Colchester played out a 1-1 draw with Port Vale in their curtain-raiser, while Plymouth ran out impressive 3-0 winners at Crewe Alexandra in their league opener.

McGreal said: “You would imagine that they are one of a number of teams in this division who think that they should be promotion candidates.

“It’s a really tough league this year.

“There’s been a lot of investment in the league this year and a lot of players of all different levels throughout the division.

“Ryan did brilliantly to get Bury promoted and Plymouth are a big club for this level (League Two).

“He wants to get them going quickly and he was able to do that last week by getting a strong positive away result.”

McGreal expects a good spectacle when Colchester head to Plymouth, looking to chalk up their first win of the new campaign.

He will come up against his Pilgrims counterpart Lowe, who led former club Bury to two wins over the U's last season.

“Ryan is a footballing man and I’ve got to know him particularly well,” said the U’s boss.

“I know how he wants to play and we’ve had good chats after games.

“He’s not going to change his style; he’s that way inclined and I’m very similar.

“I’ve got a way that I want to play and what it should do is make it a good footballing game.

“We’ve had Plymouth watched and there’s a lot of analysis that goes on.

“Steve (Ball) and I do everything that we can, along with Griff (Dan Griffiths) our Performance Analyst.

“We have match reports on the teams that we’re playing and we roughly know how Ryan (Lowe) and Steve (Schumacher) want to go about their play.

“They were so successful at Bury and they’ve started the season in a rich vein of form at Crewe.”