JOHN McGreal says Colchester United's bumper away support can play their part when they travel to play Cambridge United today.

The U's are likely to be cheered on by more than 1,000 fans at the Abbey Stadium this afternoon, as they aim to boost their League Two automatic promotion hopes with a win.

U's boss McGreal said: “When we go to Cambridge, where the dressing rooms are we can hear our fans and the noise gets going straight away.

“The players can hear it and it’s huge; you know then that you’re going out to a huge following.

“If you see the other games that Cambridge have played of late, that back end (behind the goal) is nowhere near full.

"But over the last few years, we’ve brought a really good following and we’re hoping the Swindon win might get a few extra people to come along."

McGreal has some tough decisions to make when choosing his starting line-up to face Cambridge today.

Luke Norris, Frank Nouble and Courtney Senior all made an impact coming off the bench, in the final half hour of their 3-1 win over Swindon Town on Tuesday night.

Some fans have called for Norris to partner Theo Robinson in attack at Cambridge but boss McGreal says he will consider all options when picking his team.

“We played 4-4-2 in the early part of the season," said the U's boss.

“We’ve also played 4-3-3 and also 3-5-2 at Macclesfield.

“We’ve changed the shape but we won’t get away from how we do things.

“Swindon were better than us in the first hour, so we had to change it for the good of the team.

“Cambridge will bring different problems and different personnel so we know it’s going to be different and it’s one that we’re thinking long and hard over.

“It’ll be no more difficult than any other match, in terms of team selection.

“Players will have to miss out and we have to pick a team that’s best for the club, to try and win a game of football.

“But what you do want to see and which we have seen consistently is subs coming on and affecting the game and I think they’ve done that throughout the season.

“You want the players to take an interest from the bench and then when they come onto the pitch, you want them then to be instructed and also to affect the game.

“There were loads of accolades the other night about the subs but I tend to use them quite often.

“I feel as though they’re a big part of the group, because we need to change it and we want to get maximum effort in every game.

“The six or seven boys who are on the bench know that they’re going to be called upon.

“At the minute, we’ve been changing things around but that’s not to say that we’ll do that every single game.

“We look at the GPS stats that we get them monitored on and if we see that one or two players have maximised themselves and are going into that injury zone, we then have to be careful with them because in past history, we’ve had long-term injuries.

“It’s one we have to keep an eye but you try and take a player who’s in form out of the team – they’re going to be banging the door down and asking why.

“That’s where we want to get to, because that gives me problems then."

Colchester will today be aiming to avenge their 2-1 home loss at the hands of Cambridge, last August.

Luke Norris gave the U's the lead but goals from Marc Richards and Harry Darling won it for the visitors.

McGreal said: “I thought we played really well that day.

“Unfortunately, we ended up on the wrong end of a 2-1 defeat but we didn’t lose any belief from it.

“We just felt as though if we continued to play like that, the results would come and that’s been the case.

“But there’s been a lot of hard work from the players and the staff to get us there and it’ll only be ourselves who take us out of this healthy position – no-one else.

“We have to take care of ourselves and concentrate on our own brand and own style of football."