Colchester United's Ellis Iandolo faces his ex-Swindon boss

But there will be no room for sentiment from the Colchester United defender when he faces his former manager and coach at play-off chasing Crawley Town, this weekend.

Lindsey was working as a youth-team coach at Swindon Town when he brought Iandolo to the County Ground in 2015, after he had impressed playing for Maidstone-based academy side Soccer Elite FA in a trial.

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Iandolo went on to play for the Robins' first team under Lindsey before leaving for Colchester last summer and the pair go head to head tomorrow, with their respective clubs needing points for very different reasons, at opposite ends of the League Two table.

Iandolo said: “I worked under Scott Lindsey for quite a while.

“I know him well and he’s not the sort of manager that would make excuses.

“He gets the players working hard for him.

“He coached me as a kid and he’s from round my area, so I know him really well and I had a really good relationship with him that brought me there in the first place.

“It’ll be nice to see him but it’ll be nicer to take three points home.”

Colchester head to Crawley lying a point adrift of safety, with five games remaining.

“We’re fully aware that this whole objective of ours wasn’t going to be easy,” said Iandolo.

“We’ve just faced the two best sides in the league and for 60 minutes, we’ve dominated against Wrexham and have gone toe to toe with Stockport and the game could have gone either way again.

“I think we’ll take a lot of confidence from that and we’re going to throw everything into Saturday.

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“I think that’s the way to go now – just take it game by game now and put everything into these last two weeks.

“We’re just trying to pick up as many points as possible however way we can and I think the best way to do that is by putting in good performances which I think we’ve shown in the last 14 games since the new gaffers have been in.

“If we continue to play the way we have, there’s no reason why we don’t pick up enough points.

“It’s frustrating when you don’t see the performances turned into points especially in that game against Wrexham, where we felt really frustrated that we didn’t compete for the whole 90 minutes and see the game out.

“But we can’t dwell on it and we’ve got games coming thick and fast, at the minute – we can only think about Saturday now.”

Colchester are hoping to have up to 1,000 fans cheering them on Crawley tomorrow and Iandolo says their support can make a big difference.

“We’ve got a lot of fans going and we want to put on a good show for them and ultimately, bring three points back to Colchester,” said the 26-year-old.

“When you go to places like Crawley where maybe the atmosphere isn’t as big as some of the other places you travel to, you can hear your fans pretty much more than the home fans and it makes a huge difference, especially in the last 20 to 30 minutes when it’s getting to crunch time and the game is maybe getting a little bit tougher, they’re the ones that can give you that little bit extra.”

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Iandolo is now starting regularly for Colchester, having experienced a frustrating start to the season due to injury.

The left-sided player has now made 19 appearances for the U’s since joining them from Swindon, last summer.

Iandolo added: “I think every player just wants to be out on the pitch for as long as possible.

“I had a tough start, missing the first four months of the season, so it’s great to be back out there.

“I just want to do what I can to help this team.”