Alex Wynter is hoping he has given Colchester United head coach John McGreal a selection headache after impressing on his first league start of the season.

The 23-year-old shone for the U’s in central defence in their goal-less home draw with Newport County, after replacing the suspended Luke Prosser.

Wynter has had to wait two months for his first League Two start of the campaign, with his only other starts coming in the cup competitions prior to last weekend.

But now he has featured in their starting line-up, the former Crystal Palace youngster is hoping he can stay there for the U’s trip to play high-flying Doncaster Rovers, this weekend.

Wynter told the Daily Gazette: “Hopefully I took my chance and put a few question marks in the gaffer’s head.

“It was nice to get my chance; Pross was suspended and he’s been doing well with Easty (Tom Eastman) so I’ve just had to be patient.

“I felt good in pre-season and every professional wants to play games so it’s been disappointing not to start more but it’s a long season so I have plenty of time.

“You have to be ready like I was (against Newport) – you have to ask (the manager) questions because you have to know what you’re not doing right to get into the team.

“If you do that then you know where you stand and the gaffer and I have had a few chats but it’s all been positive.

“Hopefully I can keep the skipper out (for the Doncaster game) but Pross will want to come back in, so it’ll be interesting!

“Pross has been brilliant since he’s come in so I just have to keep working hard and hopefully the clean sheet will help my case.”

Wynter admitted he was disappointed he could not help Colchester claim victory over lowly Newport, despite helping the U’s keep a clean sheet.

“It was very frustrating not to win and we want to be winning all of our home games, like we do every game,” added the versatile defender.

“We want to make our home ground a fortress and it was disappointing to come away with just a point.

“We have to take the positives and we got a clean sheet, which was long overdue and we came away with a point.

“Newport came here and sat back; they played 3-5-2 so we knew that they would come and sit and play for the point and they stuck to their game plan well.

“We’ve just got to make sure that we can adapt to that and break teams down.

“You could see that we were getting frustrated and we started going longer but we have to turn that into a positive in training this week.

“We’ve had a hectic few weeks so it’ll be nice to work on things a bit more in training and we’ll be fresher for next Saturday.”