‘There are decisions to make’ – Colchester United boss John McGreal
Kurtis Guthrie celebrates scoring for the U's on his long-awaited return to the starting line-up last weekend, but Cheltenham ran out 4-1 winners. Mikael Mandron, left, could partner Guthrie this afternoon, but Kyel Reid, right, is suspended. Picture: PAGEPIX - Credit: Pagepix Ltd
Colchester United have every incentive to repeat their away win at former Conference rivals Wycombe Wanderers from last season, when they visit Adams Park for a top-10 League Two clash this afternoon.
The U’s are currently two points and four places adrift of the Chairboys, but a win would see John McGreal’s men leapfrog their hosts and possibly return to the play-off positions.
Although the Essex club are on a current run of just three defeats in 18 matches, they did slump to a 4-1 home loss at the hands of Cheltenham last weekend, which scuppered their chances of breaking into the top three.
Boss John McGreal has some tricky selection decisions to make, especially in attack. Leading scorer Sammie Szmodics was an unused substitute against Cheltenham, but the 22-year-old is eager to return to the stadium where he scored a cracker in last season’s 2-0 away victory.
Front-runner Kurtis Guthrie crowned his first league start for nearly 11 months, due to injury, with a cracking goal in last weekend’s defeat, while target man Mikael Mandron has been a consistent performer with eight goals to his name.
“Kurtis (Guthrie) has been chomping at the bit. Even looking at his goal last Saturday was fantastic,” explained McGreal.
“That’s what we saw last year, and that is what we have been missing. We hope he can do that consistently during the latter part of this season – Kurtis wants to be scoring goals and getting back to where he was last season
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“He just wants to play football and improve his game.
“So there are decisions to make, at that top end of the pitch, which is good,” added McGreal.
With reference to Szmodics, and all the transfer speculation, McGreal said: “There’s been tons of interest and speculation, but whether that’s true of not, I don’t know.
“Last week Sammie had fatigue, after four games in nine days. That period affected us, especially being a young team, and we are counting the cost of that a little.
“Resting Sammie was a wise decision. We are monitoring him and trying to get him fit for Saturday.
“We’ve been on a good run, even though we had a bit of a blip last Saturday. It’s how we react to that. We want to build up the momentum again, and this is the perfect game to do it.”
