JOHN McGreal admits his Colchester United side face a tough opening month of the season.

But the U’s head coach insists their first games of the new campaign are ones to look forward to – and is determined to see his team start well.

The big kick-off in League Two is little more than a month away, with Colchester starting with a trip to play Accrington Stanley on August 5.

The U’s follow that up with a mouth-watering Carabao Cup home tie against Aston Villa and then a meeting with Stevenage at the Weston Homes Community Stadium, prior to completing the month with fixtures against last season’s play-off semi-finalists Luton Town and newly-promoted Forest Green Rovers.

McGreal told the Daily Gazette: “They’re really good fixtures to look forward to.

“In the first week, we’ve not only got the live game against Aston Villa but before that we’ve got a tough away game at Accrington Stanley for our first game of the season.

“It’s another long-distance trip and we had a similar scenario when we went all the way up to Hartlepool for the first game of last season.

“It’s a good game for us to look forward to early on and then after that, we have a couple of home games.

“It’s a tough opening month on paper but we’re here to play football.

“Whatever fixture you look at, it’s going to be tough in this division because you’ve got tough teams coming up and tough teams dropping down and also teams who have got a few players in.

“It’s going to make the division a lot tougher but I’m looking forward to it.

“We’re hoping to make a good start and be consistent early on.

“A lot of people forget about how well we started last season – it was just the middle of September to early November where we had that winless run.

“We had a really good start last August and we’re hoping to do exactly the same.

“It’s going to be tough opening five fixtures to start with, with three of them away from home.

“I recall last season several of our opening games were away and it hasn’t fallen lucky for us this year, because we’d have liked more home games early on because of what happened last year with our home form.

“But we know we’ll have these teams at home one way or another throughout the season.”