COURTNEY Senior is facing a race against time to be fit for Colchester United's trip to play Manchester United.

The U's winger was withdrawn at half-time in their 2-2 draw at Scunthorpe United, due to a quad injury.

Senior was replaced by Callum Harriott and is now facing a battle to be fit for Colchester's trip to Old Trafford for the Carabao Cup quarter-final, on Wednesday night.

U's head coach John McGreal says competition for places is fierce in his squad, with Ben Stevenson and Jevani Brown failing to make the squad for the trip to play Scunthorpe.

McGreal said: “Losing Courtney was a huge blow – hopefully it’s not too bad.

“He’s been suffering with a quad – he’s saying he’s fit and we’ve been questioning him so many times but the boys want to play because the thing is, as Ben Stevenson has found once you’re injured and you get out of the team, people want to take your position.

“I’m leaving the quality of Benji and JB (Jevani Brown) out of the squad.

“That’s the problem that these boys have got at the minute.

“It’s great for the team, because you know that you’ve got boys coming on like Callum Harriott who when he’s up and running again, will be some force.

“It’s heartbreaking for me at times to make these decisions but the boys know that when they’ve got that shirt, they have to produce."

Colchester are now six games unbeaten in League Two, after they came from two goals to claim a draw at Scunthorpe.

“That’s six unbeaten now – it’s a nice run with 12 points from the last six games," added McGreal.

“I can’t fault the players – we had to change the system but we’ve done it before and it’s not by hook or by crook.

“We do a lot of work on the training ground, if a Plan B or a Plan C needs to happen.

“We had to do that (against Scunthorpe) there’s no question about it and the two boys up top led the line unbelievably well and gave us the platform we needed.

“We had the momentum - we sensed that we could get a winner and Nos has run himself into the ground and even with Theo (Robinson) coming on for the last three or four minutes, there was still an opportunity there to go and get that goal."