John McGreal has admitted Kane Vincent-Young may have played his last game for Colchester United after he missed their 0-0 draw at Notts County this afternoon.

The young defender was close to putting pen to paper on a new contract with the U’s yesterday but failed to agree terms and did not feature in the League Two curtain-raiser at Meadow Lane.

Vincent-Young, who is out of contract with Colchester after failing to sign the new deal offered to him by the club at the end of last season.

The U’s would receive a fee for the former Spurs youngster should he join another club, given he is under the age of 24.

U's head coach McGreal said: “Kane hasn’t signed - we were close to him signing on Friday and he was in the building to sign but I think on the advice he’s been given, he’s been told not to sign.

“As far as we know at this moment in time, he hasn’t signed the contract and he isn’t registered to play.

“The next best thing was to get players in who want to play and I thought the XI who were out there today and the substitutes were fantastic.

“Potentially, Kane may not figure in our plans for the season now.

“It’s a shame when you look at what he’s done and how we’ve developed him into a player.

“Kane wants to sign – it’s just getting together with the representative and finding a solution.

“We changed the system of play at the last minute, with Kane obviously not signing.

“We worked on a different shape all week and credit to our boys – for us to work on the shape and change it at the last minute on Friday ahead of such an important game, the boys have put in an unbelievable performance.”

Colchester claimed a deserved point at promotion favourites Notts County and might have claimed all three points, had Tom Eastman’s fine effort not come back off the bar in the second half.

“It was an excellent point,” said the U’s boss.

“I think before the game, we made it clear that Notts County have invested to put themselves where the bookies think they’re going to be and that’s in the top three.

“I said from day one that it was a fantastic challenge for us to come here and it proved it.

“I thought we were excellent, especially in the second half.

“We had the better chances – we hit the bar and Noubs (Frank Nouble) has had a header, Aaron Collins took a touch and then slipped.

“It was a tough physical game which you know you’re going to get with Kevin’s team but I thought that we shaded it in the key areas.

“I just felt the last 15 minutes of the first half, they got a good foothold on the game and got a lot of balls into our box.

“I felt that I had to tweak that in the second half and the boys picked that up really well, to put in a strong performance.”