Colchester United set to decide on trialists

A number of free agents have linked up with the U’s over pre-season, as they look to impress and earn a deal at the JobServe Community Stadium.

Former Watford defender Bayli Spencer-Adams has spent the whole of pre-season with Colchester.

The defender featured in the second half of their 1-1 draw with Wealdstone on Saturday, their final friendly before the League Two season gets underway this weekend.

But striker Richard Kone, who impressed for the U’s against the likes of Gillingham and Billericay Town, did not feature as he is currently aiming to impress with a Premier League club.

Colchester head coach Hayden Mullins said: “I’m going to make a decision on the trialists on Monday.

“We’ve learnt quite a bit about them.

“We know that we need to strengthen certain areas and we are still looking but as yet, we haven’t made any decisions on them.”

Mullins is expecting to welcome several of his players back to training today, after they missed the friendly draw against Wealdstone.

The U’s were without several players against the National League side with the likes of Shamal George (pictured above), Dean Gerken, Luke Hannant and Kwame Poku all missing out, although not all of their absences were Covid-related.

Mullins said: “Some of them were missing due to Covid, the likes of Shamal George who’s been self isolating after ten days.

“We’ve got quite a few back on Monday which is good and we’ll be back up to full strength.

“We’ve got a full week now to get them ready for the first game, against Carlisle.

“It was a bit of bad timing when the lads went down with Covid because we were looking really good physically but at least we’ve got them back for the week leading up to the game.

“We’ve got one of the players coming back a little bit later which could put him in doubt for the game against Carlisle.

“But in the main, we’re back in on Monday which is good and if we can get a full week into them, we’ll have a full squad to pick from.”