Colchester United head of recruitment Ross Embleton on transfer window

Garner took charge earlier this month after taking over from Matt Bloomfield, who quit to take over at League One side Wycombe Wanderers.

Colchester’s main short-term priority is to secure their League Two status, with ten games remaining.

However, the club are already planning for the future and Embleton, who served as interim head coach for two games before Garner took charge, says the club want to be in a good position when the transfer window opens in June.

“It’s been surreal – I’ve had two transfer windows with two different managers," said Embleton, who joined Colchester as their head of recruitment last summer.

“The dynamic has been very different on both of those occasions.

“I think that will change and move and evolve, in terms of the type of players and the characteristics that we’ll be looking for, now we’ve got a new manager.

“It’s been quite refreshing some of the conversations I’ve had, with the games that he’s been watching and the players that he’s seen and identified.

“I can familiarize with a lot of those players, so that gets us off on a good footing.

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“I think last time, it really helped me selfishly when I moved away from working with the players when Wayne Brown left as I could analyse the squad where I felt we were good, where I felt we were strong and areas where I thought we could develop.

“That really helped me in terms of the January transfer window, as well as the backing that Robbie gave us to bring the new players in.

“I felt I had a real idea of what we needed and what was going to help us, so I think this experience will help that again and obviously building the relationship with Ben will help make that even better.”

It promises to be a hectic summer for Colchester, with a host of players out of contract.

The U’s brought in eight new signings in January and the next window is set to be similarly busy for Embleton and his colleagues.

He said: “When you look at the squad and the dynamic of it and the people that are in and out of contract which is taken into consideration quite a lot and how we replace or who gets offered a new contract, the manager has got a good period to analyse all of that.

“One thing that sometimes gets lost in transfer windows is everyone thinks that when it opens on January 1 and closes at the end of the month, your work stops.

“Actually, what I thought brought us some success this time around was the money that was invested and the support Robbie gave us to bring players in.

“Then there’s the work we put in tirelessly of watching games and players and regular meetings.

“The preparation and the plan was that the day it opened, we could make offers to players.

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“Just before it opened, we were ready to finalise what the deals were going to look like and hopefully get those players over the line.

“I would really like the summer to look like that, if we can go after our targets and be positive and aggressive.

“That work is already being planned but we shall start to evolve it now we know who the manager is and how we need to work it, in the summer.”