DANNY Cowley has outlined his stance on the possibility of bringing in free agents, with the transfer window now closed.
The U’s registered their EFL squad list earlier this week, naming 19 players in their 22-man squad.
It leaves Colchester with room to add up to three free agents before the January transfer window opens, offering the opportunity to bolster their ranks.
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However, when asked whether signing free agents was an option at present, U’s boss Cowley said: “No, I don’t think so.
“I think we are where we are with the group.
“In an ideal world, if we could have added a little bit more pace in attacking areas, in a wide area we would have done but it just wasn’t quite possible.
“It’s very difficult to have the perfect transfer window.
“We had so much to do this summer.
“I really want to try to as a football club get to a place where we have less to do once we get to the summer windows – I think that is possible to us.
“We have 19 players who left, four re-signed so that made 15 but then five loans, six or seven new faces – it’s just so much to do, too much to do for a club with only a small recruitment team.
“We want to try to get to a place where we can retain our players and that’s not always easy, that’s not always easy.
“You can do that and once you’ve worked with the players for a period of time, you’ve done a lot of work with them.
“You’re a long way down the line in terms of them understanding you, you understanding them, the principles that you play with – they have a lot of knowledge and for that to leave the building is always tough.
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“If we can try to retain better going forward, that’s going to be an ambition of ours but it’s not always possible and we respect it.”
Colchester handed first starts to deadline-day signings Jay Williams and Kylian Kouassi at Swindon Town last weekend but Cowley admits his squad need time to build their game understanding.
Cowley added: “In the ideal world, you come together at the beginning of July and you have six weeks to kind of build your foundation and the principles that you want to play with but that hasn’t been afforded to us, so we have to very much learn on the job.
“The group came together late - we understood pretty early in the window that was going to have to happen.
“Also, when people do come in later they come in different places in terms of their fitness levels and they’re still building their game understanding.”
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