Colchester United director of football Tony Humes believes it's time for the club to enjoy some long-overdue success.

The U's have endured four seasons of struggle, battling relegation before eventually suffering the dreaded drop last term.

Now they are preparing to wipe the slate clean and start a new chapter of their history in League Two.

Colchester are fifth favourites for the title, according to the bookies.

Skybet and Paddy Power expect them to be fighting at the top, alongside favourites Portsmouth, Luton, Doncaster and Leyton Orient.

And Humes believes the club and its supporters deserve something to cheer about.

“Obviously, the short-term side of it wasn't so good last season but the long-term development of the football club is what we’re looking at," said the former first-team manager.

“Everybody can go for a short-term fix but it maybe hides things that need to be put right, whereas the long-term development of the football club will hopefully give us that stability for many years to come.

“Colchester United will be here getting stronger the longer it goes on and that’s basically what we’ve done, to try and remedy the fact we’ve had three or four seasons of real struggle.

“We want to say now that we’re going to start turning it around and enjoying some success.

“There’s a lot of hype around the club only being interested in bringing young players through but that’s certainly not the case.

“The club will be built around that being its strength but because it’s a football club, it has to aim to be successful.

“Anybody who says the club lacks ambition isn’t right.

“We’ve been ambitious in many different ways but we understand that it might take a little bit longer than that overnight fix.

“It’s a long-term development and you have to be patient."

Humes is enjoying his new director of football role, working alongside head coach John McGreal.

And he is grateful to chairman Robbie Cowling for giving him another job at the club, having left his post as manager last November.

“From both a professional and personal point of view, it was great testimony for him to stick by me," said Humes.

“I’m not sure many would in the same respect - you don’t know.

“But I think the chairman respects how hard we worked to put the club in the situation that it’s in now, in terms of the long-term development."