Winger ready for U's test - exclusive

Last updated : 18 October 2006 By Andy Parsons

The winger, who is finding his feet in the starting 11 following an injury-plagued start to the campaign, believes that Wednesday's players have the ability to take on even the toughest of opponents.

He told Footymad: "I think our squad here is fantastic. Hopefully we can show this by getting on a run now and getting some wins under our belts. We have to go into Colchester and QPR in a positive mood but hopefully we can do well and show the fans that we are a good team and we can win games."

The former MK Dons player completed 90 minutes for the first time against Barnsley on Saturday but he does not want another reoccurrence of what happened down at Plymouth, where he damaged his hamstring on his first game back from a pre-season niggle.

He added: "It was good to play the full game on Saturday. I have played 90 minutes at reserve-team level a couple of weeks back so it's just a matter of me getting my fitness on an even program really. I haven't been out for that long; I have had usually three or four days rest and then getting back into full training. But now hopefully I can keep things steady and play more games.

"I have had to keep my head straight really and keep focused. I have to make sure that when things happen to me like they did down at Plymouth, they don't get to me and the result against Barnsley means you can always take positives.

"Hopefully now I can start playing well for the rest of the season so I can cement my place on the right side. But as long as we win I don't really care where I play, it doesn't matter if I am in the starting 11 all the time, obviously I want to play every week, but as long as we win that's the main thing.

"I have played in the championship (old league one) before when I was 19 so the standard hasn't really changed that much, you just have to adapt to some things yourself. The club have got to try to adapt to life in the championship as well as they can, we didn't do that at Wimbledon and that's why we went down."

Paul Sturrock is hoping to keep an unchanged team against Colchester although there will be late fitness tests for Glenn Whelan, Graham Coughlan and Drew Talbot.