John McGreal says Colchester United are plotting to bring a “goalscorer” to the club before the transfer window closes, later this week.

The U's thrashed Forest Green Rovers 5-1 to chalk up their first victory of the campaign, with five different scorers on target.

But following Denny Johnstone’s exit to St Johnstone and Kurtis Guthrie’s continued absence due to injury, head coach McGreal says they want to boost their attacking options before Thursday’s transfer deadline.

McGreal said: “We’ve been looking to bring in a striker and we’ve been promised the money is there to do that.

“The recruitment guys, Tony Humes, myself and Steve (Ball) are all hands to the pump and we know that the money is available.

“We’ve got until Thursday and there’s no panic.

“There are players and clubs we’ve been talking to but we won’t say anything until the deals are over the line.

“We would obviously love a goalscorer.”

McGreal was delighted with his side’s performance against Forest Green.

Kyel Reid, Frankie Kent, Sammie Szmodics, Kane Vincent-Young and Courtney Senior were all on target in the convincing win.

McGreal said: “We challenged the boys to score goals from different areas of the pitch and that happened.

“Some of the football was out of this world. We’ve got a good home record and that’s what we’ve been stressing.

“We’ve only been beaten twice at home this year in the league and we want that to stay like that.

“We want to keep that connection with the fans and this will have helped that.

“Forest Green are a good footballing team like we are but luckily, all of the hard work that we’ve put in during the week warranted the win.

“The key moments worked for us in both boxes. Sam Walker made a great save at a key moment for us with the score at 2-1.”

“It’s been a tough week for the boys. From Sunday onwards, we’ve had them in and as we all know the result at Luton wasn’t good enough.

Colchester under-23s are in Professional Development League Two action this afternoon.

They host Hull City’s at Florence Park, kick-off 1pm.