Colchester United sporting director Dmitri Halajko on transfer window

In the first part of our in-depth interview with Dmitri Halajko, the U's sporting director reveals the process behind the club's extensive player recruitment this month, the factors involved and how they are building for both the present and the future.

COLCHESTER United sporting director Dmitri Halajko says they have recruited players who will instantly improve the squad - both now and in the future.

The U’s snapped up eight new players in the transfer window, with six of them joining on a permanent basis.

Matt Jay, Connor Hall, Tom Hopper, Fiacre Kelleher, Arthur Read and Will Greenidge have all penned two-and-a-half year deals, at the JobServe Community Stadium.

Their main short-term objective will be to help Colchester move up the table and away from League Two relegation danger but Halajko has stressed the club are investing in both now and beyond.

He said: “We’re trying to build for the future.

“We didn’t just want to get people in for this six months.

“We thought we could get people who would improve us this year and help us get out of the situation that we’re currently in but then we wanted people that we feel next year, could help us challenge for the other end of the table rather than where we’re at currently.

“We felt we could give those players the two-and-a-half year contracts because of their age.

“They’re all probably in and around their peak years, therefore a longer contract gives us that continuity to hopefully build a squad and have some stability to really push forward.

“We set out a solid plan probably about six weeks before the window opened, in terms of some key objectives that we wanted to achieve.

“Actually executing that plan is a lot harder and it takes a lot of hard work by a lot of people, so the fact that we’ve been able to execute the majority of that plan to a good level is something that we’re pleased about and hopefully, it can really help the team push forward now.

“We wanted players of a certain calibre that were going to improve our team instantly, that were proven at the level or the level above and we feel we’ve done that.

“That’s not an easy thing to do, because that’s what every team is trying to do in the window and there’s a lot of competition out there.

“There were a couple of factors that helped us do that.

“The first was the backing of the chairman.

“Without that, nothing can be achieved.

“Then it’s the hard work and the due diligence and the negotiations and the good decisions that we have to make to try and identity that talent and then the harder bit is then securing that talent.

“We had to work extremely hard to secure the players.

“We had to make people believe in the project of what we’re trying to build towards and try and explain to them where we’re trying to go, as a football club, sell ourselves and see if people wanted to be part of that.

“We found that people were which didn’t surprise us, because we believe the size of the football club is a good size football club, for the level we’re at and people do want to come and be part of it."

Several of Colchester's new signings are experienced professionals, some of whom have been playing their football in League One this season.

Jay, Hall and Hopper were all playing regularly in a higher division for Exeter City, Port Vale and Lincoln City respectively, prior to joining the U's.

Jay and Hopper had both captained their previous clubs and Halajko says character was an important element the U's examined, before making their signings.

“When we did the work, character was certainly one of the key factors that we looked at – it has to be," said Halajko, who rejoined the U's as sporting director last summer.

“Quite a few of the signings that we’ve brought in have been captains or captain material for the teams that we’ve got them from.

“That’s important for us.

“We want to have a changing room that’s pulling in the right direction and has the right character.

“Games like the one at Hartlepool really showed that – conceding an equaliser with a few minutes to go but then having the character and the quality to just pull themselves out of that tough situation.

“It really showed the type of quality that we’ve got in the squad.”

Colchester have backed boss Matt Bloomfield in his first transfer window as head coach.

The U's boss has said he wanted to freshen up his squad and the club have provided him with the resources to bring in the players he needs.

Halajko said Bloomfield was a big factor in helping to persuade potential new signings to come to the club, last month.

He added: “From my point of view, if I can get a player to sit in front of Matt, it’s always going to be a positive conversation.

“His enthusiasm just rubs off on people and that’s always going to be positive, so whenever I can get him to speak to a player, I know that that’s going to be something that helps and moves us closer to securing that talent.

“There’s other things that I think we’ve got that other clubs at our level haven’t.

“Our training ground is also something that always helps us to secure players – they come and see the environment to work in and they know that we’re serious.

“The stadium as well and the good infrastructure in terms of staffing and facilities that we’ve got.

“We’ve got some good people all the way through the club so when you add up all of those things and where we’re trying to push it as well, we could end up being quite desirable for a lot of people and that’s shown in this window.”

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