Colchester United could hand Martell Taylor-Crossdale his debut

And head coach Steve Ball believes the striker’s loan move to the U’s represents a big opportunity for the youngster.

Ex-Chelsea youngster Taylor-Crossdale has joined Colchester on a season-long loan from Premier League new boys Fulham.

The 20-year-old, who has represented England at under-20, under-18, under-17 and under-16 level, is hoping to make his U’s bow in his new side’s EFL Trophy Group A opener at Portsmouth tonight and Colchester head coach Ball is looking forward to seeing his new signing in action.

Ball said: “It’s a big chance for Martell.

“He’s a young boy and he’s got to get used to the physical league very quickly but that’s why I signed him, to come here and get involved.

“He’s an on-the-shoulder striker who runs in behind and stays central.

“He scored loads of goals for Chelsea at youth level and he now just has to translate that into league football.”

Colchester will be looking to reproduce their impressive first-half performance at Reading for the whole of the 90 minutes at Portsmouth tonight.

The U’s led their Championship hosts 1-0 at the Madejski Stadium thanks to Jevani Brown’s opener, before Lucas Joao's hat-trick sent the Royals through.

Colchester’s trip to Fratton Park is the second game in a busy week for the club and boss Ball admits that will influence his thinking when he picks his starting line-up to take on Pompey.

He said: “There’s three games in seven days and I’m managing the squad very carefully.

“With the depth of the squad, there will be players who play those three games.

“But I’m going to look to make changes on Tuesday night, for sure and keeping working the squad as much as I can for the game on Saturday.

“I go into this game having seen lots of things (at Reading) that give me a really good feeling about it.

“We had a bit of a deep press; not too deep but a 30-yard trigger point to go and press them and I thought we frustrated them.

“The plan was working well and it’s great when you see the work on the training pitch come to fruition.

“I think we’re good at that, when you look at the games we had last year against the big teams like Tottenham, Palace, even Man U for an hour.

“It’s nice to have that because I think we’re that fluid team going forward but also having that defensive quality is also so important.

“I gave Miquel Scarlett is full debut, Noah Chilvers started too and we brought on Marley (Marshall-Miranda).

“I’m not going to put them in, if they’re not good enough.

“That’s really come out of me so far; these boys have taken their opportunity really well in pre-season and that will continue.”

Luke Gambin is set to return to the Colchester squad having been away with Malta on international duty but Luke Norris, Tom Lapslie and Diaz Wright are all sidelined through injury.

A Colchester XI will travel to play Maldon and Tiptree in a pre-season friendly tonight.

The U's will visit Park Drive to take on the Jammers, kick-off 7.30pm.

The number of spectators permitted for the game will be capped at 400, in line with the Government's Covid-19 guidelines.