Colchester United boss Tony Humes says he is happy with the way pre-season has gone, as they count down the days until the start of the 2015-16 campaign.

Colchester played a total of seven friendlies, beating the likes of Ipswich Town and a young West Ham United side but losing to Leyton Orient and a Fulham XI.

“The ultimate thing from pre-season is to come out of it with no injuries and with players having got minutes under their belt,” said Humes.

“I think we’ve done that with the majority of players so in that respect, it’s been a good pre-season and we’re happy with it.

“We’ve built up slowly and ended up with four good home games and I think we’ve been competitive in every match.

“It’s been five weeks of pre-season and everybody is looking forward to that first game now.”

Colchester scored a total of 19 goals over pre-season, conceding eight.

The U’s failed to hit the net in their 1-0 defeat against a Fulham XI last weekend and Humes admits they need to be more clinical.

He added: “It just shows areas that we have to work on.

“Not scoring against Fulham could make us more determined to score next weekend (against Blackpool).

“We have to keep trying to get the ball into the areas and get people in the right positions to stick the ball in the back of the net.

“I haven’t been disappointed in that respect but when you get in those areas, you need to finish things off.”

For all of the latest Colchester United news, see the Daily Gazette.