JOHN McGreal believes both Colchester United and their Carabao Cup opponents Crawley Town will view their fourth-round tie as a ‘fantastic opportunity’ to clinch a coveted quarter-final place.

The U’s reward for their magnificent third-round triumph over Tottenham Hotspur is a trip to Broadfield Stadium to play their League Two rivals, next month.

It means Colchester will travel to play Crawley twice in October, with the two sides also set to meet in League Two on October 12.

And although McGreal admits he would have loved the chance to see his side take on another top-flight side at the JobServe Community Stadium in the next round, the U’s head coach feels they can beat Crawley and progress.

McGreal said: “When I got asked the question, I said I’ve love to play against another Premier League team at home and I got neither, in a way.

“But when you look at it the other way, for two second division clubs going at it, it gives both clubs a fantastic opportunity to get into the last eight.

“I believe the club’s only been in the last eight (of the League Cup) once before so it’s an unbelievable achievement.

“It’s a good game to go and win and I’m sure Crawley will be looking at it in exactly the same way.

“We play them two weeks prior to the cup game in the league and it’s a game that we feel that we can go and win.”

Colchester’s players put everything into their win over Spurs, after producing a performance full of hard work and endeavour in the penalty shoot-out win.

The U’s returned to training today after their cup heroics and ahead of the trip to play Macclesfield Town this weekend, boss McGreal says they are making sure the players recover as much as possible from their midweek exploits.

“We’ve split the groups off and a couple of boys have done a bit more extra recovery and for other boys, there’s been a session on as well,” added the U’s boss.

“We’ve had the boys who haven’t had the minutes of late put in a good session with Steve (Ball).

“The other boys have been with me and the sports scientists to make sure that they recover well to go again on Saturday.

“We’ve got boys now who have been missing out and not even getting into the squad.

“I’ve been given a squad which is of a good number and I have to make use of that number, as well.

“The main thing was for the boys to recover and we’ve already had a big run of fixtures of late and a lot of travelling in that, as well.

“It’s where we are and when you’re winning games of football, you feel games are coming around the corner and that’s what we’ve been doing of late.”