Colchester United head coach John McGreal insists they will not sign new players for the sake of it as the new League Two season draws closer.

The U’s are looking to further bolster their squad ahead of the new campaign, which gets underway in little more than a fortnight’s time.

Colchester have already bolstered their squad by signing Cole Kpekawa, Ryan Jackson and Rene Gilmartin.

But the U’s are after further reinforcements, with a new forward top of their list of priorities following the departure of Chris Porter and Macauley Bonne, this summer.

McGreal said: “We’ve been patient – one or two have slipped through for no reason down to ourselves and we’re finding that it’s a competitive league.

“We’re hoping to get one or two over the line but we’re not just going to make signings for the sake of it.

“We have a competitive group and we want to keep that competitiveness.

“We want to bring in that bit of quality to make us that little bit different.”

Colchester continue their pre-season with a trip to play National League South club Braintree Town tomorrow (kick-off 3pm).

The U’s have won all four of their friendlies so far and are yet to concede a goal, having seen off a West Ham United XI, Llandudno, Needham Market and Maldon and Tiptree so far.

“The games that we’ve had so far have been different,” said McGreal.

“We had the two non-league games, then Llandudno and then the West Ham game and now we’re looking at the Braintree game, which will be another different test.

“That’s what we wanted to do really – to get a lot of different games in.

“We’ll have three games within a week so it’ll be a perfect test for the boys to get those minutes under their belt.”

New U’s right-back Jackson could feature against Braintree, having missed their last three friendlies with a quad problem.

McGreal said: “Ryan is a fast boy and it’s just precautionary with him. He’s tweaked his quad and there’s no point in rushing it with still a few weeks left in pre-season.

“We’re hoping to give him the rest that he might need and there’s a bit of fatigue in there from pre-season.

“We’re looking probably at next weekend onwards, to get him involved.”

Kurtis Guthrie is not yet ready to feature in pre-season but could be involved in Colchester’s home friendly against Ipswich Town, next Tuesday.

The former Forest Green Rovers striker has been recovering from the ankle surgery that caused him to miss the final two months of last season.

McGreal added: “We’re hoping to have Kurtis back in around ten days and hopefully involved in the last couple of pre-season games and have him up and ready for the first day of the season.”

Meanwhile, Luke Prosser is also set to sit out the Braintree Town game and is yet to feature in pre-season.

The ex-Southend defender saw a specialist last week about the knee injury which sidelined him for the final six months of the campaign.