JON De Souza is confident that Colchester United’s youngsters can go from strength to strength, this season.

The likes of Player of the Year Noah Chilvers, Brendan Wiredu, Ryan Clampin and teenager Junior Tchamadeu all impressed for the U’s, despite a challenging campaign for the club.

Colchester have been busy adding lots of experience to their squad this summer, with Frank Nouble and Alan Judge the latest additions to their squad.

And now that they have got plenty of games under their belt at senior level, performance director De Souza believes they can make an even bigger impact, in the 2021-22 campaign.

He said: “The number of young players who have made their first-team debuts, last season is positive.

“But I think the biggest positive is probably that we’ve had over 100 starts with the likes of Kwame Poku, Noah Chilvers and Junior Tchamadeu.

"I do believe that the benefit of that long term is we will see hopefully more successful performances from them in the future.

“The benefit of playing young players is not only the resale value but every year, they get better whereas if you have a 29 or 30-year-old, they don’t always necessarily improve year on year, although certain players do.

“Certainly with Noah at the age he’s at and with Junior only being 17 and Kwame only being 19, they’ll definitely benefit from the amount of game time they had, last year.

“We need them to now perform to a level where they help the team win.

“We’ve also got some good young players coming through, particularly in the 18, 19 and 20 age group – I’m quite excited about that.”

Gazette:

Colchester experienced a testing final few months of the season, where they had to battle against relegation.

When Hayden Mullins took interim charge alongside Paul Tisdale at the end of March, they found themselves four points above the relegation zone.

But three wins, three draws and two defeats helped the U’s preserve their Football League status and De Souza says they are addressing the reasons for their poor form, last season.

He said: “As a club and as a group of staff and also from a personal point of view, everyone can talk about what they’re like under extreme pressure but until you experience that pressure, you never really know.

“My only other experiences of first-team football were when I worked with Brentford in League One and we got promoted and then in and around the play-offs.

“We then had a promotion push last season where we made the play-offs and last season has been battling against relegation, so I’ve experienced both now.

“I’ve learnt a lot that was very similar in both.

“I take responsibility for what’s happened this season and I was very reflective during it – I’ve learnt a lot about myself.

“I care about the club deeply and I didn’t want it to be in a position where it ended up going out of the league.

“We’re fully aware of where we think we failed and where we feel we need to get better, both on and off the pitch and I’d like to think that a lot of those things are starting to be addressed already.”

Mullins is preparing for his first season as a full-time manager, having performed impressively in interim charge in the final weeks of last season.

Working alongside advisor Paul Tisdale, the former West Ham United midfielder was a calm influence on the squad in a difficult situation, helping them stay up.

De Souza added: “It was a great end to the season, especially given the pressure that we were under, going into the Walsall and Southend games.

“That was a positive, as was how strong the club stayed under that pressure.

“I think you can only really learn about how you deal with pressure, relegation battles and that kind of stress when you’re in them and I was really pleased with the calmness of not only Hayden and Paul (Tisdale) but also the whole staff at the football club.

“They showed a real belief that we were going to stay up.

“There was a lot of pressure because of how things were going and rightly so but I guess the pleasing part was that we managed to get through it when it really mattered and we stayed strong, as staff and players.”