John McGreal insists his decision to omit Tom Eastman from his Colchester United starting line-up last weekend was nothing to do with his recent form.

The U’s current longest-serving player found himself on the bench for their 2-1 defeat at Plymouth Argyle last weekend, having previously started every single League Two game for the club this season.

New signing Lloyd Doyley was preferred ahead of Eastman, who has made more than 200 league and cup appearances for the U’s but boss McGreal has stressed the Colchester-born centre-half will have a part to play for them, this season.

McGreal said: “Tom has been a regular starter for Colchester over the last two or three seasons and I think it’ll do him good to have a little look.

“I wanted to mix things up a little bit and I’ve got Lloyd in there to bring in that bit of experience and I thought that it worked really well.

“But we will definitely need Tom – he’s been excellent and it’s nothing on what he’s done over the last couple of games.

“It was a similar thing with Sammie Szmodics - I wanted to shake one or two things up and give them a little bit of a jolt.

“Even though we have a small squad with all of the injuries that we’ve got, I still have to keep it competitive and if you look at the other boys who came in (at Plymouth), they were chomping at the bit as well.

“That’s what I have to try and do with the small squad I’ve got, until I get those injured players back.”