Sammie Szmodics knows that he has a fight on his hands, to regain his place in the Colchester United starting line-up.

Szmodics enjoyed half-an-hour’s action at Southend United on Tuesday evening, in the 2-0 defeat in the Checkatrade Trophy, and looks set to be on the bench for a league game today, at Barnet, for the first time in nearly seven weeks.

The 22-year-old was a regular before sustaining an ankle injury (at Grimsby on September 26), in the attacking midfield role behind the front two, which seems to be his best position.

But although the U’s have exited both the FA Cup and Trophy with a below-par performances over the last week, the U’s improved league form will probably mean Szmodics has to wait in the wings for a start.

“The boys have done well in my absence. That’s the good thing about this squad – we’ve got our youngsters coming through and our seniors like Reidy (Kyle Reid) and Lofty (Doug Loft).

“So I know that I will have to fight to get back in.

“We’re out of the cups, but that means we can really focus on getting promoted now, and I think we have the team to do that.

“A few weeks ago we were losing matches away from home, but now we’re picking up points.

“Barnet is a hard game to come back into, but that League Two is a very physical league, especially for the likes of me and Tom Lapslie – we are not physically the biggest, so we have to look after our bodies in another way.

“But I can’t wait to get out there again,” added Szmodics.

Despite missing more than six weeks, recovering from ankle ligament damage, Szmodics is second in the goal-scoring charts with five goals, from 13 outings. Mikael Mandron overtook him recently on six goals

“It’s tough to get into my stride straight away. I only started training again last Thursday (week) with a couple of sessions,” continued Szmodics.

“I felt it a lot in my lungs. You don’t realise it. I only missed four or five weeks, but that means you are training every day and you have to catch up.

“I had a couple of weeks to reflect, after this latest injury. It was just a relief that it wasn’t another broken leg.

“I went to see a specialist in Leicester to have an injection. I had eight injections altogether and thankfully it’s sorted out the problem.”