Sam Walker says playing every minute of Colchester United’s League Two campaign so far has been a “massive positive” for him.

The 25-year-old keeper is set to make his 150th league appearance for the U’s at Notts County this weekend, having featured in all 39 of their league fixtures to date.

Walker is glad to be making up for lost time, having been forced to miss almost the entirety of last season with a serious knee injury.

And the former Chelsea youngster, who has kept ten clean sheets so far this season, says he is aiming to start Colchester’s final seven matches and achieve his goal of playing in every game.

Walker said: “It’s been a target of mine to start every single league game in every season, throughout my entire career.

“I take great pride in the amount of games I’ve got at my age and barring last season, playing every game was something that I did regularly.

“It’s certainly something for me to see out the season, to play every minute and be a part of it.

“I wanted to be the mainstay of the team – that’s what I set out to do at the start of the season and that’s what I’ll be looking to do.

“With the type of injury I had, you’re never really sure how players are going to come back from that.

“A lot of credit goes to the way I was managed by the manager (John McGreal) and the assistant (Steve Ball) during pre-season but also George Bankole the goalkeeper coach, Stef Russo (sports scientist) and Flynny (physio Tony Flynn) and the way they managed my workload and my training.

“I haven’t missed a training session let alone a game and that’s been a massive positive for me, this season and I’ll look to be doing that for many seasons more.”

Colchester head to Notts County this weekend aiming to boost their play-off hopes – and notch up their first away win of 2017.

The U’s are without a victory in seven matches on their travels and shot-stopper Walker says he is at a loss as to why they have failed to achieve more success on the road, over recent weeks.

“We had a very good festive period and had two great away wins at Luton and Stevenage and then it’s tailed off a bit since then,” added Walker.

“It didn’t help having three away games on the bounce in January and we haven’t quite been able to pick it up, since then.

“I can’t really put my finger on why but we’ve got three very winnable away games left and if we go on and win them, the question over our away form probably goes away a little bit.

“That’s what we’ll be looking to do, in those three games.”