John McGreal says Colchester United are willing to be patient in their pursuit of more new signings this summer.

The U’s completed their first piece of recruitment last week with the arrival of right-back Ryan Jackson on a free transfer from League One club Gillingham.


But Colchester are on the lookout for further new faces, with former Chelsea youngster Connor Hunte and ex-Barnet winger Ryan Gondoh both linked.


An experienced goalkeeper will definitely be brought in to challenge Sam Walker and Dillon Barnes, with Dean Brill moving onto pastures new after failing to agree terms on a new contract.


But with the new League Two campaign still more than a month away, head coach McGreal says they will not rush into making any new signings.

McGreal told the Daily Gazette: “Last summer was totally different, with us losing all of those players early on.

“At that point, we knew that we had to get players in straight away.

“There are still one or two things going on at the minute and we have irons in the fire.

"But these things take time, especially at this time of the season.

“With this division that we’re in and the offers that we’ve put to them, who knows?

“Players do take their time to make a decision and there’s a lot of offers on the table for different players.

“But there’s loads of players out of contract as well and looking for clubs, so we’re going to be patient.”

Meanwhile, McGreal says welcoming their injured players back for the start of the 2017-18 campaign will be like having new signings to the club.

Luke Prosser, Kurtis Guthrie, Denny Johnstone, Frankie Kent, Sammie Szmodics and Craig Slater are all back, after spending a long period on the sidelines last season.

“The big thing for me is that we have the injured players coming back,” said McGreal.

“It’s like six new signings and that’s what I’m looking at, concentrating on those positives.

“It’s not as if they were just out for three or four weeks – all six of them were out for more than four months each.

“Having them all back is a really big plus for the football club at the minute and hopefully, they’ll get through the first stages of pre-season.”